


Leave Out All the Rest

by 2012bookworm



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-03-25 15:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13837278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2012bookworm/pseuds/2012bookworm
Summary: Will’s stumbling tired, but he manages to dredge up a mostly sincere smile when Kit comes barreling towards him as soon as he opens the front door.





	1. Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for minor warnings.

Will’s stumbling tired and pretty sure the rope burn on his arm is weeping again, but he manages to dredge up a mostly sincere smile when Kit comes barreling towards him as soon as he opens the front door.

“Uncle Will, Uncle Will!  Guess what?”  She squeals.

He ruffles her dark hair with his good hand, looking down at where she’s clinging to his pants leg.  “What, Kit-Cat?”

“No, guess!”  She says, tugging at him.

“Hmmm,” He pretends to think.  “Did you color me a new picture?”

She giggles.  “No!  ‘Nother guess!”

“Did you… go to the store?”  She shakes her head.  He’s too tired for this.  Knowing his niece, it could be literally _anything._   “Can I have a hint?”

“No!  No _hints_ ,” She tells him, pouting.  Well, there goes that idea.

He pretends mock offense.  “No hints?  Then I guess there’s only one thing left to do.”  He swoops down and grabs her, hiding the wince as his muscles protest, using the arm that wasn’t probably leaking a mix of blood and pus, glad that he at least washed the fish guts off his hands.  “Tickles!" 

She shrieks and squirms and _wow_ is she getting big for this, almost managing to tip out of the arm he has wrapped around her hips before he steadies her.  

“So, you gonna tell me?”  He asks, ducking his head down to look into her smiling red face.

She puts a sticky hand on his cheek and considers, relenting when he wiggles his fingers towards her side again.  “Nana and I made cookies!”

“Cookies?”  He asks, widening his eyes, doing his best to hide the worry.  His mom was supposed to be at the store all day today.  That she wasn’t, that she was home baking cookies with Kit instead, isn’t good.  “Where was your mama?”

“Picked up an early work shift.”  Becks tells him, leaning in the doorway.  “I was already babysitting the McMannon kids.”  She frowns.  “What happened to your arm?”

He looks down and sighs.  Yep, it’s bleeding again.  “Rope burn.” 

“Nasty.  Hey Kit, can you go put away your toys in the living room?”  Kit pouts at her.  “If you do, you can help me and Uncle Will cook dinner.”

Kit brightens and scrambles away as soon as Will lets her down.  He stretches out his shoulder, waiting until he knows his niece is out of hearing range, before turning back to his sister.  “How bad?” 

She grimaces.  “Uncle Dan covered.”

“He can’t keep doing that,” Will says, low-voiced.

Becks shrugs, a tired, weary thing.  “It was just for the afternoon.”  She walks over to inspect his arm. “We should really clean this.”

“ _Becks._ ”  He says, unwilling to let this go that easily.

She looks at him, tired and worried and smelling of herring, and sighs.  “He doesn’t mind, you know he doesn’t.”

And that’s not the _point_.  “He’s got his own work.  He can’t keep covering for Mom all the time, especially when we can’t afford to pay him, not really.  The store’s barely hanging on as it is, and if it keeps closing unexpectedly…”

“It’s not that bad, is it?”  Becks asks, biting her lip, hands gone still, and fuck, he didn’t mean to say that, didn’t mean to heap his worries on her, didn’t mean for any of this.

So he lies, just a little, doesn’t think about the accounts he’s spent the last few weeks poring over, trying to figure out how to make the numbers better, make them work for what he needs.  What they all need.  “No, no, it’s ok.  Just, bad business, you know?  Closing up shop like that.  Makes customers think we’re unreliable.”  He sighs.  “And it’s not like it’ll hurt Kit to spend a few hours at the store.  We were there plenty, as kids.”

“We were older.  Ish.  And Kit’s her granddaughter.  It’s different.”  She points out.

Will sort of hates that explanation.  “Is it ladies night or choir practice?”  He asks, trying to keep any trace of bitterness out of his voice.  He loves his mom, he does, and he knows how much she sacrificed to raise them, but lately it feels like she’s never there.

“Ladies night,” Beck says, her commiserating smile telling him that he didn’t quite succeed in making the question sound neutral.  She looks down at his arm again and winces.  “Come on.  There’s gauze in the first aid kit upstairs.”

He shakes his head.  It looks worse than it is, and besides, “It’s not worth it.  I’m about to take a shower.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t deal with it at the docks,” She says, exasperated, but he can hear the worry underneath. 

He grimaces and pulls away.  “Wasn’t time.  Besides, you know how he is.  Far as he’s concerned, a saltwater rinse should be good enough.”

She nods, conceding the point, and shoves him toward the stairs.  “I’m still surprised none of you have died from gangrene yet.”

“Me too.”  He grumbles under his breath, but from the snort of laughter she heard him well enough.

He’s almost to the stairs when she says, quiet, almost wistful, “You could quit, you know.”

Will stops, closes his eyes.  He wants to, god, he wants to, wants to never set foot on a lobster boat ever again, wants to stop having to listen to their uncles, having to laugh along with their jokes, wants out, of this town of this place of his job, but, “I can’t.  You know I can’t.”

Becks makes a small, sad sound.  “I know.”

He doesn’t turn around before he drags himself up the stairs.

***

Dinner’s spaghetti, again, but there’s fresh basil in the red sauce and Kit would happily eat noodles for every meal, so Will tries not to beat himself up about it.  It’s just that it’s easy, and cheap, and fast, and he sometimes can’t think himself through anything more complicated when it feels like even his bones ache.

Kits helps – for a certain definition of help – but it’s cute, watching her rinse basil while Becks holds her up so she can reach the sink, and turning the knob on the can opener with utmost concentration as Becks holds the handles tight.  But even though he spends far too much time steering her away from the stove, it’s… soothing, he guesses, having her there, her constant bright chatter.  It reminds him of the Haus, on easy days when no one is too stressed and Bitty lets him help with the baking.

Hannah comes in right as they’re finishing up, dropping a quick kiss on Kit’s head in response to her delighted “Mama!” before helping herself to a bowl of pasta.  Kit immediately starts telling her all about her afternoon baking cookies.  Hannah obviously listening, letting out the occasional acknowledging sound, but Will can see the way she slumps, the careful make-up under her eyes.  She’s always looked like their mom, from her delicate features to the strawberry blonde hair, but now she’s starting to resemble her in ways that make Will’s gut clench, always a little worn around the edges, brittle in a way he isn’t sure how to quantify.

“You home tonight?”  He asks, quiet, once Kit has gone off to watch cartoons.

She shakes her head.  “Thursday bar shift.  I’m just here long enough to eat and hug Kit.”

“Be careful driving home.”  He says, and gets up to put his dishes in the sink, avoiding Becks’s speaking glance, glad she’s covered in suds and so can’t chase him when he disappears up to his room.  He sits on his bed, head in his hands, just long enough to take a few deep breaths, long enough to push down the worry and fear, the self-recriminations, before he gets up to run Kit a bath.

He’s still running it all over in his head by the time the water’s warmed up, his body performing the familiar actions by rote.  He just can’t see any fucking solution, is the problem, and it’s all leaving him even more tired than before.  _Two years_ , he reminds himself.  _Just two more years._  He’ll manage, they’ll manage, for at least that long.  They have to.

“Kit!”  He calls when the tub’s mostly full.  “Bath time!”

He hears a shriek followed by a muffled thud and turns off the water before going downstairs to start the nightly ritual of digging Kit out from underneath the coffee table. 

He stops in the doorway, arms crossed, and raises an eyebrow at his giggling niece.  She’s flat on her stomach under the sturdy wooden table, one hand wrapped around a leg in an attempt to make it harder to drag her from her hiding place.  He’d tried, once or twice, when he was particularly exasperated or in the mood to play, but now he relies on his usual method: bribery.

“If you’re back upstairs before me, you can have bubbles,” He tells her.

She, of course, darts out and races up the stairs.  _Thank god_ , he thinks as he trudges back up the stairs, _that she’s obsessed with bubbles._

He catches her before she pours the entire bottle of bubble bath into the tub, but just barely, and ignores her pout as he adds a reasonable amount to the bathwater, turning the taps back on just long enough to make it foam up and grabbing her rubber duck out of the showerhead caddy.  Of course, he gets half-soaked when she unexpectedly jumps in while he’s still leaning over the tub, but that would have happened eventually anyway.  He gives in to the inevitable and kneels down on the bathmat, grabbing the shampoo so he can start washing her hair.

She, of course, squirms away from his hands.  “No! Not yet!”

“You can play _after_ we wash your hair.”  He tells her firmly, one hand already on her scalp.

She gives in and sits still while he runs the soap through her hair, carefully rinsing it out without getting any in her eyes.  “There.”

As soon as he sits back she’s splashing again, making the duck bob in the artificial waves.  He gets up, smiling, and leaves her to play.

However much everything else sucks, Kit at least is happy.  

This at least they’re doing ok at.

***

He remembers the first time he’d ever held her, tiny and red-faced and all but immobilized in a pink blanket, one of those odd little hospital hats on her too-pointy head.  He’d held babies before of course, cousins and cousins’ children and the occasional neighborhood kid dropped into his arms, but never anyone this new, this _small_.

Hannah had fallen asleep in the hospital bed, and Will’s mom had gone for coffee, and while Becks had offered to take over Will found himself rather reluctant to hand over the warm weight in his arms and sent her to find food instead.  The rest of the extended family would be by tonight, after the store closed or the catch was sold, but for now it was just him, quiet and staring and a little terrified. 

He’d whispered to her, nonsense and promises and stories, barely seventeen and feeling much older, but still somehow unsettled in his skin. He’d rocked her, gently, when she started to stir. 

“Shh.  Shh, Cat, it’s ok, I’ve got you.  I’ve got you, Kit-Cat, you can sleep.”

“Kit-Cat?”  He heard Hannah croak from the bed.  “Really, Will?”

He blushed and went to lay her in her mom’s arms.  “Catherine, Cat, Kitty-Cat, Kit-Cat?”

“It’s sort of sweet, actually.”  Hannah smiled, brushed her hand across the top of Cat’s head.  “And at least you weren’t thinking of the candy bar.”

He ducked his head, fidgeted.  “No.”

“Kit-Cat, huh?”  Hannah murmured, just as Cat opened her eyes.  “I guess you like it too.”

And then his mom had come back with his brother John in tow, who’d just driven halfway across the state, and things got loud again, congratulations and exclamations bouncing around the walls, but Will remembered most that still half-hour, when he’d promised a tiny sleeping bundle the world. 

He’s still doing his best to give it to her.

***

It’s Sunday, which means Sunday lunch, which means the extended family descending on the house, which means that Will’s supposed ‘day off’ turns into a mad rush of cleaning and cooking and general hair-pulling.  It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that Will has to hide that he’s the one doing most of the work.  His dad’s family has opinions on men in the kitchen, and while Will’s pretty much past the point of caring, all the aunts give Hannah and Becks dirty looks and Will’s… not okay with that. 

Well, more than not ok, more like impotently furious, because Hannah gets enough shit from everyone for being a single mother and doesn’t need another thing added to her plate and Becks is good at _so many things_ , but it’s like it doesn’t matter because cooking-wise she can pretty much only make sandwiches and boxed mac and cheese and even then it sometimes sticks to the bottom of the pot.  And he likes cooking, is good at it, but god forbid he’s in the kitchen when everyone gets here, or he’ll have to deal with Aunt Ruthie ushering him out, shaking her head, and over-cooking his roast.

His mom’s taken Kit to church, and he and Becks had silently agreed to let Hannah sleep in after Becks mentioned that she’d stumbled into their room closer to dawn than not (Will winces internally – normally Becks takes over his room during the school year) and so he sets her to picking up Kit’s toys and ironing napkins while he starts on the actual meal. 

Hannah wakes up just in time for Will to quickly explain what the hell he’s making before he has to run upstairs and change out of his sweatpants.  Because god forbid he wear something comfortable to Sunday lunch.  She slips an apron on over her sundress and gets to work.  By the time everyone arrives she’s just mussed enough to look like she’s actually been cooking in the kitchen all morning, and both Aunt Ruthie and Aunt Martha are fussing over all her hard work.  She hates it, a little, taking credit for what Will’s done, but after spending an entire meal listening to Aunt Martha passive-aggressively complain about the food’s quality the one time she’d told the truth, she’d decided just to let it go.

He grabs a beer from the fridge which is surrendered to Uncle Matt as soon as he gets into the living room, but it gives him an excuse to go back in the kitchen and subtly check the blueberry pie that’s in the oven, before returning with beers for Uncle Luke and Uncle Jerry.  He manages to halfway participate in a conversation about the decreasing lobster prices, and only fakes the smallest grumble when his youngest cousin drags him outside to throw the football.

Tim’s a good kid, fourteen, awkwardly earnest, and very, very determined to make the high school football team.  He’s pretty good, as far as Will’s aware, maybe not star of the team, but a solid player.  He tells Tim as much and watches him beam at the praise, reminds himself to do this more often, that Tim, as the youngest, may feel just as out of place sometimes as he does. 

They get called in soon enough, Aunt Martha reminding them to wash their hands before they sit down.  Will, sometime in the last year, has graduated to the adult table in the dining room, even if he would much rather sit with Kit, Tim, Becks, and the two girl cousins her age in the kitchen.  Thankfully, with the aunts around, the conversation moves away from lobster prices and on to familial gossip – what’s John doing now, David might propose to his girlfriend soon, I heard Alice did well on her last calculus test – all the normal, small things that make up their lives.  Kit sneaks in eventually and cuddles up in Hannah’s lap, staring wide-eyed at all the grown-ups.  Hannah absently cleans something sticky off her hands.  It’s less painful than Will thought it was going to be, than it has been in the past.  It looks like this is going to be one of the good Sundays, when he can just enjoy the company of his family without biting his tongue every other sentence. 

Those days come less and less often now, he feels, and while in some ways he regrets that, he can’t regret all the things he learned when he left and went to Samwell, or the other family he’s become part of him, however loud and overbearing they can sometimes be.  He thinks that might be why it hurts so bad, sometimes, to sit at this table and know there are things he shouldn’t ever say, bits of himself he can’t share.  It feels wrong, to have a family that will only ever know part of him.

He gets up to grab slices of pie for the table, ignoring the ache.  He’ll text Chowder later.  It usually helps.

***

It’s foggy today, and a little rougher than usual, and they’re working their way down the east side traps, all of which puts Will in a sour mood.  It’s days like this that make him very glad he doesn’t have any propensity for seasickness.

“Off the starboard!”  Uncle Matt yells, just as Will catches sight of the red and yellow buoy.  They idle to a stop and Will reaches over, hooks it, and drags it into the boat.  Uncle Luke throws it into the dip barrel as Will feeds the line through the winch and starts hauling in the traps.

Part of the reason the east side traps are so awful is that the water’s deeper, which means hauling the traps has to be faster, since there’s no time for it to just take longer.  Will grabs the first trap when it reaches deck height, heaving it up that extra foot or so and balancing it on the rail.  Uncle Luke starts sorting the catch while Will pulls in the next one, which Uncle Matt starts sorting.

Most of their traps come in groups of four, but they tend to haul in and sort two at a time, so Will steps carefully over the coiled line and goes to get fresh bait.  Well, fresh for the traps.  The bait itself is a day old and stinks even worse than usual.

“Got a new egger.”  Uncle Luke says before pulling a knife out of his pocket to notch the lobster.

Uncle Matt just nods and continues measuring, throwing back two lobsters before he finds one that’s in the correct size range.

The two men toss their empty traps into the middle of the boat before hauling in the next two, and Will bends down and rebaits the traps, inspecting the hog rings as he does, before carrying them to the stern in preparation for throwing them back.  Once the other two traps are cleared and reset, Uncle Matt starts up the boat and Will pushes the traps out into the water as they pick up speed. 

“Banding or bait?”  He calls.

“Banding,” Uncle Luke replies, “I’ve got enough bait prepped for the next few buoys.”

So Will goes and helps his uncle with banding, noting with an internal wince the relative lightness of this last haul.  Yesterday was decent, and today’s not even half-done, but the pots have been pretty empty, and the lobsters themselves on the smaller side.  Since Will’s paid a percentage of the daily profits (a miniscule percentage, but it’s something) he’s aware, always, of the amount they catch and the market prices, even if his uncle accuses him of disinterest.

 _No,_ he wanted to scream the last time he got yelled at for not caring, _I’m just tired of it being the only thing we talk about._

“Portside!”  Uncle Matt calls, and the whole process begins again.

It’s not that Will _hates_ lobstering (though he kind of does, these days), it’s that it isn’t what he wants to do for the rest of his life.  He doesn’t have the sea in his blood like his Uncle Luke or the need to carry on the family tradition like his Uncle Matt.  It’s just a job, and a fairly shitty one, exhausting and dangerous and low-paying.  But it’s also how he’s helping pay for college, for books and room and board, and the way he paid for his hockey equipment before he went to Samwell.

Not that the cut he gets does much (his uncle, chuckling, called that his spending money and suggested he spend it on dates and beer), but as long as he does the work, pays that price, Uncle Matt will continue helping his mom with college costs.

And so Will will grit his teeth and work, this summer and the next, if it means he can get his degree and leave this place behind, never have to haul another lobster trap ever again, if he can make enough money to help provide for Kit, make sure Becks can finish college, do something different with his life, something more.

The traps get thrown back into the sea and Will lets his mind go blank and numb, lets his body carry him from task to task as the water slips by underneath.

“We’ll eat lunch after the next three buoys,” Uncle Luke tells him.

Will nods and keeps banding.

***

He’d overhead the argument, even though he knew he shouldn’t be listening.  He’d been planning to sneak into the kitchen for a snack, twelve and always hungry, but he’d frozen in the living room at the sound of his mom and Uncle Matt arguing.

It was soft-voiced, but _definitely_ an argument, Will knew.

“You know I don’t have anything against – that kind – but, well, I’m just not comfortable with my nephew learning too much about that lifestyle.”

“What lifestyle?”  His mom asked, unusually fierce.  “The one where he runs a successful business?  Where he learns how to fix things?”

“Now, Erin, I know he’s your brother, but –“

Oh.  They were arguing about Uncle Dan.  Will knew there was something different about Uncle Dan, but they didn’t talk about it.  He got the idea he wasn’t supposed to.  He liked Uncle Dan, who was patient and kind and had shown Will how to take apart a garbage disposal the other day.  It was _fascinating_.

“Besides,” Uncle Matt said.  Will realized he’d missed part of the conversation.  “It can’t be good for him, spending all that time in the hardware store by himself, without kids his age.”

Will snorted at that.  The hardware store was much cooler than hanging out with his friends, doing nothing.

“Can’t you convince him to try out for a sport or something?  Even the chess club at this point, even if they are a bunch of sissies.”

His mom sighed.  “He wanted to do hockey.  We can’t afford the equipment, not this year.”

Will had known that, but he’d asked anyway, just in case.  His best friend had played last year and Will had gone to a few games.  Hockey seemed so _cool_.

“If it’s just the money, I can help with that.”

Will held his breath.  Maybe, just maybe…

His mom hesitated.  “Matt…”

“You know I’ve got no kids of my own, and Mark… Mark would want me to make sure you all are taken care of.”  A pause.  Will leaned closer.  “Besides, once he gets a little older, I’ll train him to help out on the boat.  Learn some lessons on the value of things.”

Will frowned.  He didn’t want to work on the lobster boat with his uncles when he got older.  He wanted to help run the hardware store or help Uncle Dan fix things.  But if it let him play hockey…

“You really think he’s been spending too much time alone?”  His mom sounded worried.  He didn’t want her to be worried.

“Yeah.  This’ll be good for him, Erin.  It really will.  All of it.”

“Ok.”  He heard his mom take a breath.  “Ok.  But I don’t want him on that boat until he’s at least fifteen.”

“Wouldn’t take him any younger anyway,” Uncle Dan said gently.

Will crept away before he heard anymore, but he was pretty sure he was going to get to play hockey, which was the best news he’d heard in a while.  Even if it meant spending time on that stinky lobster boat.

***

It’s late (too late, Will’s brain keeps reminding him, you have to be up at four, go to sleep), but Hannah’s working at the bar again and Kit hadn’t wanted to go to sleep, demanding story after story, and he needs to get this summer class assignment done sooner rather than later.  Which is why he’s sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and his laptop, trying to blink the grit out of his eyes, when Chowder calls him.

“Hey C, what’s up?”  He answers on autopilot.

“Dex!  Dexy Dex Dex!”  He hears a giggle.  “I miss you!”

Will finds himself reluctantly smiling.  “How much did you drink, Chowder?”

Chowder’s spending the summer interning for some tech company, along with a couple other college kids.  Will’s trying his best not to be jealous.

“Just a beer.  Beers.  The interns are playing drinking games!”

Luckily for him, Chowder tends to avoid hangovers.  Otherwise, it sounds like this one might be a doozy.  Still, “Drink some water, ok?”

“Yes!  You’re the best!  Did I say that already?”  There’s a pause, and Will’s about to explain he needs to go, when Chowder says, all in a rush, “Wait.  What time is it there?  Is it late? ‘Cause it’s sorta late here.  Did I wake you up?  I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Will laughs.  Trust Chowder to forget about the time difference.  “C.  Slow down.  It’s fine, I was awake.  Working on stuff for that differential equations class.”

He can practically hear Chowder brighten.  “Oh!  How’s it going?  Isn’t it still late for math?”

Will shrugs before remembering Chowder can’t see him.  It’s just that his voice is so real, so there, that it aches.  “No other time.  Been on the boat all day.”

Chowder makes a mournful noise.  “It’s summer.  You shouldn’t have to late night math.”

All at once the weight of everything crashes back down again.  “Yeah, well.”  He takes a breath.  He can’t deal with Chowder’s drunken empathy anymore, despite how good it feels to hear his voice.  “I should get this done.  I’ll call you later, ok?  And get home safe.”

“Don’t worry!  We’re having a sleepover!  It’s great!”  He hears a muffled victory yell somewhere in the background.  “Night Dex!”

“Night, C.”  Will hangs up and turns back to his computer.  The numbers swim even worse than before, and he gives up, closes his laptop and dumps the rest of his coffee in the sink.

There’s an odd weight in his chest as he stumbles upstairs and collapses into bed, something like longing, something like anger.  Loneliness, maybe.  It’s been too long since he spoke to his friends, since he fooled around or goofed off, and he misses it, that he can be a little more silly, a little less tightly wound, when he’s at Samwell.  Not that he lets go completely all that often, if ever, but still….

Nursey loves to tease him for being too uptight – he half wonders what he would say if he could see Will now.  If he would think it was funny or sad.

When his alarm goes off – far, far too soon – he wakes up still on top of the covers.

***

John comes to visit for a weekend a few weeks before Will’s supposed to head back to school.  It’s good, seeing his brother, whose work as an EMT means frequently unpredictable hours.

What’s less good is the way he automatically takes over, six years of being the man of the house coming to the forefront.

“Becks!  How you been?”  John hugs her, an arm wrapped around her shoulders.  “Figured out where you want to apply to college yet?”

Becks rolls her eyes.  “Not yet.”

“Doesn’t the application process start soon?”  He asks, sounding worried.  “I mean, if you don’t wanna go, that’s one thing, but I thought you were interested, and if you’re trying for scholarships…”

And Will gets it, he does, habit’s hard to break and he’s probably not much better, but _still._   It’s been a long time since John’s lived at home.  _You left us,_ he wants to yell.  _You packed up and moved and you never came back, not really, so you don’t get to do this, you don’t get to come here and act like you know everything._

John ruffles his hair and drops down next to him.  “And you!  How you been?  I feel like I never talk to you anymore.”

Will shrugs.  “Been busy.  School, the boat.”  The store. Kit.

“Uncle Matt treating you ok?” John leans towards him.  “One summer out there and I was done.”

“That,” Beck comments dryly, “Is because you get violently seasick.”

Will wishes he got seasick.  Not that it would matter, probably.

Whatever comment John wants to make in response is interrupted by Hannah coming in with Kit, looking happier than she has in a while.  She and John have always been close, and Will knows she misses him, even if they text all the time.  Kit, of course, squeals in delight.  John, by dint of living halfway across the state and visiting, at most, three times a year, has the attraction of a novelty.  It helps that he completely spoils her.

“Princess!”  He crows before standing up, sweeping her out of Hannah’s arms and swinging her around.  “You been good for your mom?”

“Yes!”  Kit says.  “The best!”

“Oh really?”  He asks, balancing her on his hip like she belongs there.  Will squashes down something he is not calling jealousy.

“Not the best, but pretty good,” Hannah says, hands on her hips.  “Do I not rate a greeting?”

“Hey Hannah,”  John says, using his free arm to pull her into a tight hug.  “Missed you.”

“Missed you too, goofball,” Hannah says, muffled by John’s shirt.

Will and Becks exchange glances.  Becks rolls her eyes, and Will manages a tight smile back.  He’s happy, he is, it’s just…

Well.  He wishes John was around enough to see more than just everyone’s happiness.

“Uncle John, down.”  Kit pulls at John’s hair.  “Want to be down.” 

“Ok, princess,” John says, leaning down until her feet touch the floor, at which point he lets her wiggle free.  She dashes off, probably to get her new stuffed puppy to show to John.  He straightens with a wince.  “She’s getting big.  Where’s Mom?”

“On her way.  She stopped to pick up pizza,” Becks tells him.

“Donny’s?”  John asks, excited.

“Of course,” Hannah says.  “Come on, help me set the table.  You can tell me all about this new girl you’re seeing.  More than just ‘I like her’.”

They walk into the kitchen, John protesting that there’s nothing more to tell, really.  Becks turns to Will.

“Best behavior, remember?  I know you don’t really get along, for some reason, but he’s not here very often and it’s important to Mom and Hannah.”  She crosses her arms.

Will tries not to roll his eyes.  He’s already gotten this lecture once, as well as an admonishment from his mom, and he gets it, ok.  “I was fine!”

Becks sighs.  “No, you were all grumpy stoic.”  She pokes him, and he bats her hand away.  “At least pretend you’re excited to see your one and only brother.”

“I am!”  He is.  It’s just… complicated.  Like everything to do with his family.

“Then fucking act like it,” Becks says, exasperated.

“Language,” He reminds her, crossing his own arms and giving in to the urge to scowl.

Becks smiles, faux sweet.  “Fucking shit.  Ass.”

Will throws his hands up and stalks into the kitchen. 

He does his best, he really does, is polite and interested and only glares when John steals his crusts, which is a perfectly good excuse, and Becks doesn’t kick him in the shin even _once._

So of course, after dinner and catching up, once Hannah’s left for the bar and Mom’s putting Kit to bed, John corners Will in the living room.

“How are things here, really?”  He asks, earnest and a little condescending.

Will raises an eyebrow.  “Do you really want to know?”

“Of course!”  He looks…wounded, of all things.  It’s strange.  “It’s my family.  And Hannah…”  He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture Will recognizes with a twinge – he does it himself.  “I don’t like that she’s working at a bar, of all places.”

Will clenches his fist.  “You don’t get to decide her life for her.  She’s had enough of that.”

“That’s not – “ John sighs.  “You know I didn’t mean it like that.  I just – I worry, you know?”

 _Do you?_   Will wants to ask.  _Do you really?_   But he doesn’t, just makes himself relax his hand and play nice.  “I know.  But it’s not – it’s not like there’s much choice.”

John frowns at that.  “What about that restaurant?  I thought she was working at that place downtown.”

Will wants to scream.  Instead, he grits his teeth and tries for reasonable.  “She is.  Lunch shift, mostly.  Two jobs, remember?”

“I didn’t know that.  Why?  I mean… she shouldn’t have to, right?  I get it, money’s tight, but she doesn’t have rent or utilities or anything, not living here.”  He pauses.  “Is Mom asking her to pay rent now?”

“She’s trying to save up for night classes,” Will explains.  That’s only part of the reason.  He doesn’t add that she’s also paying most of the utilities, has been for a while now.  That the store isn’t doing as well as maybe it should be.  “And Kit’s getting older.”

John eases off, satisfied by that answer, as Will knew he would be.  Even if Will had half-hoped that maybe he’d keep pressing, force Will to tell the whole truth.  “Yeah, she mentioned trying to maybe get some kind of certification.  So is it just a summer thing?”

“I don’t know.”  Will takes a deep breath.  “Listen, you’re just here for a few days, so it doesn’t really matter.  Just – enjoy the time, or whatever.”

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?”  John asks, crossing his arms and trying for stern.  The particular expression he’s using hasn’t worked on Will since before he left for college, so he has no idea why John thinks it’s going to work _now._

“You left,” Will tells him, done with the bullshit, with playing nice, with pretending this is anything more than what it is.  “And that’s fine, I get it, but stop acting like you have any say in our lives.”

Will shoves past him before John can figure out how to reply.

***

Hannah had followed her high school boyfriend to Rockland, despite their mom’s disapproval.

“You’re too young to be following a man anywhere,” She’d said.  “Wait a year, or even six months, and if you still want to, go then.”

“But Mom, I love him,” Hannah had said, firm in her conviction.  “He wants us to get married once he gets established, wants us to start a new life together." 

Mom sighed.  “Are you sure he’s not just saying that, sweetheart?”

The ring he’d given her right after graduation had assuaged any of Hannah’s doubts, even if it hadn’t completely appeased their mom. 

But she’d helped Hannah pack, and filled her gas tank, and sent her off with well-wishes and a reminder to call, or better yet, come visit, Rockland wasn’t too far, and two hundred dollars in cash in her glove compartment.

It had been Will’s first summer working on the boat, and what he mostly remembered was a blur of exhaustion and sore muscles, but his mom’s face as Hannah drove away, worried and sad, stuck out for reasons he couldn’t quite explain.

They’d settled in, Hannah finding work as a secretary, her boyfriend as a lighthouse tour guide, in between classes at the local college.  The few times Will talked to her (mostly she called his mom – every once in a while, Becks) she seemed happy, enjoying the city, making friends with some of the other women in her office. 

She called less and less as time went on, but Mom insisted that was normal, part of growing up and asserting your independence.

“John kept forgetting to call too,” She told Will.  “He still forgets to call.  Even though there are cellphones these days.”

Will, dutifully, promised to call at least once every two weeks once he went off to college.

The first hint of something odd was when Hannah called to say she wouldn’t be coming home for Christmas.  “I’ll be working right up until Christmas Eve, maybe even on Christmas Eve, for the overtime, and well… we’re sort of looking forward to our first Christmas, just the two of us.”

“Oh,” Will’s mom said, trying to hide her disappointment.  Hannah had wanted to talk to all of them at once, so the phone was on speaker in the middle of the kitchen table. “Of course, sweetheart, if that’s what you want.  Maybe New Years instead?”

“Work.  But I’ll come up for a visit soon, I promise,” She said, reassuring.

Mom closed her eyes.  “I understand.  Just, we miss you.” 

“Yeah,” Becks chimed in.  “I bet Will is taller than you now.”

“Shut up,” Will hissed.

Hannah laughed.  “Finally hit that growth spurt, huh?”

And the conversation moved on from there, work and school and the shop, Beck’s band recital, Will’s last hockey game, and they didn’t think anything more of it, except for the vague disappointment that this would be the first Christmas they weren’t all together.

So when Hannah showed up at the front door midway through February with a suitcase and something hard in her eyes, Will was surprised but not worried.

“Hannah!  Mom didn’t tell me you were coming,” He’d said, hugging her.  In fact, as far as he was aware, Mom hadn’t heard from Hannah in a couple of weeks.

“She didn’t know,” Hannah replied, short.

“O…kay.”  Will ushered her inside.  “How long are you here for?”

Hannah shrugged.  “Anyone using my old room?”

“No.”  Will shut the door and looked more closely at his sister, who was avoiding his gaze.  “Why would they?”

“Great, let me know when Mom gets home?”  She said as she hurried up the stairs.  He heard a door slam and decided that whatever was going on, it was worth calling his mom home early.

He was right, and a horrifying amount of tears and a cup of hot chocolate later (she’d refused coffee, but Will needed to do _something_ ) they’re in the living room, Hannah all alone in the armchair and his mother on the couch, Will hovering in the doorway half-forgotten.

“He wanted me to get rid of the baby,” Hannah said, bowed over her mug.  “And I couldn’t – I just – I couldn’t.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” His mom said, reaching out but too far away to make contact.

 “He wanted to be my whole world, and I – I would have let him, I was letting him, and it wasn’t on purpose but I thought he’d be happy, and he wasn’t, he said I was selfish, that he wanted me focused on him right now, not a baby, and – “ She dissolved back into tears.

Will left and went to make dinner, rage and confusion and sorrow tangling in his gut, awkward and unsure of what he could do to fix this, unable to watch her cry a second longer.

***

Uncle Dan comes for dinner not long after John leaves.  Will’s always liked him best, of the uncles, quiet and unassuming and always willing to listen.  He taught Will how to repair things when he was young, and he still likes, when he’s home on break, to sit in the repair shop and tinker, absorbing the quiet that is absent from every other part of his life.

He used to come over for Sunday family dinners, but there’d been some sort of fight, and now he mostly doesn’t.  Will misses it.  Misses him, especially now when they’re living in the same town but still barely see each other.

The conversation is easy, pleasant, the only argument some good natured bickering about the best tools to fix a dryer.  (Will, after spending the better part of the year coaxing along the one at the Haus, feels like an expert.  Uncle Dan insists that his years of experience count way more.  Becks rolls her eyes and asks them to please talk about something interesting.)  It’s good, and relaxing in a way Will didn’t know he needed, some of the tension he’s so used to he barely notices it uncoiling.

For once, Hannah doesn’t have work, and so she takes Kit up to bed, promising to read her her favorite story (Richard Scarry’s _What Do People Do All Day_ – Kit insists that you find the weird earthworm in a hat before she’ll let you turn the page, so reading it takes approximately _forever_ ) while Becks disappears to hang out with friends.  Uncle Dan offers to help his mother with the dishes, and Will half-listens to the murmur of their voices while he works on diff-eq. 

Today’s one of the days when the lesson makes sense, which is fantastic, so he’s deep enough into it that he doesn’t notice when Uncle Dan sits down in the armchair next to him.  He jumps when he finally looks up. 

“Oh!  Did you and Mom want to watch TV or something?  I can move –“  He starts to swing his feet off the couch, but is stopped by Uncle Dan shaking his head.

“It’s fine, kid.”  He hesitates, just long enough that Will starts to get concerned.  “How are you doing these days?”

“Fine?”  Will tries, not sure what he’s getting at.  “I mean, busy, but that’s normal.”

“Uh-huh.  Listen, your mom asked me to look over the accounts –“

Will winces.  “Sorry about that.  I mean, thanks for doing it, but you don’t – you shouldn’t – I know you’ve got your own business to run.”

“That’s not –“  He stops, sighs, starts again.  “They’re usually a mess.  It’s not – Erin’s just – well, that was always Mark’s thing, more than it was hers.  But they weren’t.  In fact, they were pretty much perfect.”  He pauses.  Will waits to see where this is going.  “When I told your mom, she mentioned you’d been helping her out.”

“Yes, and?”  Will asks, still confused.

Uncle Dan gives him a look.  “I know how long that sort of stuff takes.  What I want to know is where you found the time.”

And oh, this is _that_ conversation.  “I’ve been working on it Sunday afternoons.  It’s nice, actually, getting out of the house for a few hours.”

He realizes he’s said the wrong thing when Uncle Dan’s eyes narrow at ‘a few hours’.  “Kid – Will – you know that’s not your job.”

So?  Will does plenty of things that aren’t, technically, his job.  Helping with the accounts is the least of it.  “Someone’s got to do it.”

“And that someone’s you, huh?”  Uncle Dan asks, the question sounding more rhetorical than serious.  Will just shrugs.

The answer’s yes, not that he’s stupid enough to say that.  There isn’t anyone else.  He’s made peace with that, mostly, even if he’s still stupidly grateful for the times he can let it all go, decide not to care for an hour, a day, a week even. 

He doesn’t want to run the hardware store, not anymore, hasn’t since he was sixteen, really, but he just needs it to hold on a little bit longer, keep paying the mortgage, keep the people he cares about afloat, and if that means spending Sunday afternoons in the tiny cramped office in the back next to the bathroom, swearing indiscriminately at washed out receipts and the ancient desktop computer, he’ll do it.

He’s resigned himself to a lecture on overstressing himself, or something similar, so he’s surprised when Uncle Dan doesn’t say anything, just leans forward to put his head in his hands. 

The silence makes Will twitchy, enough that he finally blurts out, “Everything ok?”

“It shouldn’t have to be like this,” Uncle Dan say, muffled by his hands.  “You’re _twenty_ –“

“Almost twenty-one.”  Will mutters.  Uncle Dan ignores him.

“ – you shouldn’t be working six days a week and doing accounts on the seventh, plus taking classes, plus helping with Kit.  If your dad was alive – “

“He’s not.”  Interrupts Will, harsh, probably too harsh, but he can’t, he cannot go down that road of what-ifs.  “So it doesn’t matter.”

Uncle Dan looks at him, sorrow in the downturn of his mouth.  “Just let me help your mom with the accounts, kid, please?”

He doesn’t get it.  Of course.  “I can’t ask you to do that.  You’ve got your own shop, and you already spend enough days covering for Mom.  That’s more than enough.”

“Why’s it such a big deal?  I want to help.”  Uncle Dan pauses, considers, his eyes narrowing as he comes to a conclusion.  “If this is some sort of macho man independence bullshit…”

“No!”  Will stands and starts pacing, grips at his hair.  How the hell does he explain this in a way that makes sense?  “We can’t – I can’t – I don’t want to drag you down with us.  It’s – the repair shop’s important to you, I – you’re going to regret abandoning it, soon enough, and I – we can’t keep expecting you – you’re doing this all this for free, and – it – it isn’t fair.  Not for anyone.”

“Kid,” Uncle Dan says, watching him pace, nothing moving but his eyes, “I’m family.  Family does this kind of stuff.”

“Some family,” Will mutters, before realizing what he’s said and wincing.  “Sorry.”

Uncle Dan’s face twists.  “I’m not your Uncle Matt.  I…I don’t expect to be repaid, in favors or hours or… anything.”

“I know,” Will says, slumping back down onto the couch, “that’s why I can’t ask you.”

He studies Will, actually looking.  Whatever he sees makes his shoulders slump in resignation.  “You know that makes no sense?”  He sighs, sinking back into the chair.  “Not a lick of sense.”

“Yeah,” Will’s voice comes out hoarser than he’d like.  He wonders what exactly his uncle saw that made him give up. 

They sit there for a few minutes.  Will stares down at his hands, idly rubs a thumb against a stain on his jeans, doesn’t look up.

“I – I wasn’t lying when I said working on the accounts is kind of relaxing.”

Uncle Dan snorts.  “That I can believe.”

Another silence, but this one is more comfortable, less fraught, almost normal.  Will does his best to sink into it, pull it inside himself for the next time he needs calm.

“You’re a good man, Will,” Uncle Dan says suddenly, and Will barely manages not to flinch.

He shakes his head.  He’s not, not really.  There’s too much anger in him, too much fear.  He knows good men, is talking to one of them, has met a few others, Bitty and Jack and Chowder, and he doesn’t belong among them, at least not yet. 

“He’s not a monster, you know.”  Will looks up at him.  He elaborates.  “Your Uncle Matt.  He – he won’t stop loving you if you quit.”

“I don’t care about his love,” Will says.  He stops, shakes his head.  “I mean, I do, but… he’s paying almost all of my housing costs.  I can’t risk that.”

“You really think he’d stop if you told him you didn’t want to work on the boat next summer?”  Uncle Dan asks, quiet and nonaccusing.

“I don’t know,” Will admits, head in his hands.  He wants to believe he wouldn’t, but if there’s even the smallest chance…

“He wouldn’t.  He loves you.  He will love you, no matter what.”  Uncle Dan looks so earnest, and Will feels a hysterical urge to laugh.

“You don’t know that,” He mutters, something too self-deprecating to be a smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

Uncle Dan starts to say something reassuring before Will cuts him off.  “Freshmen year of high school, they repealed that bill.  I remember seeing you sitting in the kitchen.  You looked so, so _defeated_.  Mom was holding one of your hands.  You said it wasn’t like it really mattered, not for you, you didn’t have anyone, but I knew you didn’t mean it.”  He stops, swallows.  “Uncle Matt spent the next Sunday lunch talking about how glad he was that the gay marriage wasn’t allowed in his state anymore.”

“I know,” Uncle Dan says, a heaviness to the words Will hates.  “Why do you think I stopped coming?”

“So what’s he gonna say when I tell him I’m just like you?”  Will asks, mouth dry, the closest he’s ever come to admitting what he is, the closest he probably ever will come in this house.

It takes him a second, but Will sees when it clicks, when his uncle gets what he’s implying.  His head jerks up and he stares at Will, his gaze part pride, part sorrow, part steely determination.

“If he says _anything_ , he’ll have to answer to me.” There's steel in his normally soft voice.

“Thanks,” Will says after a moment, hoarse.  Uncle Dan keeps watching him.  He feels jumpy, unsettled, adrenaline still pumping with nowhere for it to go.  He clears his throat, trying to get rid of the lump.  “I – I should go finish this.”  He says, nodding towards his laptop.

“Will?” Uncle Dan says right as he’s about to leave the room.  He turns back around.  “I’m proud of you.”

He nods and leaves before his uncle can see him blink back tears.

***

He’d woken up and found Aunt Martha folding laundry on the couch.  It was weird – too early for visiting, and neither of his parents were around, even though they were _supposed_ to be cooking Saturday breakfast.  They’d gone out the night before, but Aunt Ruthie had been babysitting, _not_ Aunt Martha, and so Will couldn’t think of a single reason for her to be on their couch, especially doing laundry.

“Hey, sweetie,” His aunt said when she noticed him standing in the doorway, “Did you want to watch cartoons?”

He shook his head.  “Where’s Mom?”

Her face crumpled, just for a moment.  “She…she got hurt last night.  She’s at the hospital.”

“Dad?”  He asked, tangling his fingers in his pajama top.

“With her.”

He wasn’t sure how to ask the next question.  “Is it bad?  Will…will they be home soon?”

She shook her head, and he’d started trembling.

“Oh, oh baby, come here,” She said as she got up and gathered him into her arms.  “It’ll be all right, you’ll see.  Everything’ll be all right.”

He sniffled, trying to hold back tears, because everyone knew that eight-almost-nine was _too old_ to be crying, but it was hard, because Aunt Martha was nice, but she wasn’t his mom, and his mom was hurt and in the hospital, and so was his dad, and…

Becks had woken up not long after, and his aunt hadn’t said anything, just told her that she was going to watch them for a while and put on cartoons.  John and Hannah she’d taken into the kitchen, and Will had tried to listen, but all he could hear over the TV was voices, and he couldn’t get closer because Becks was curled up against him, and Aunt Martha had told him to watch her and not move.

They’d come back in quiet and huddled on the couch with him and Becks, John with his jaw clenched and Hannah with red eyes.  Aunt Martha moved to the armchair and kept folding laundry.

He remembers the phone rang and they all jumped.  John went to get up, but Aunt Martha shook her head and took the phone into the hall before she answered.

“Your mom’s doing fine,” She said when she came back in.  “Just a sprained wrist and a concussion.”

“Dad?”  John asked, too quick, too sharp.

“They don’t know yet,” She said.  John turned away and buried his face in a pillow.  “But I’m sure it’ll work out just fine.”  Her voice gentled.  “Your mom’s staying until they get more information on your dad, but we can go see them after lunch, if you want.”

She tried to feed them cereal.  Becks pouted and complained, used to big Saturday family breakfasts.  The rest of them picked at the food.  Lunch was the same, Will’s stomach rolling too much to consider eating, and by that point even Becks had picked up on the tension, staying quiet and close to either Will or Hannah.

Their mom hugged them in the hospital waiting room, one-armed, gentle.  Will was careful with her sling.  Everyone was there, all the aunts and uncles, and they pull all the kids into empty seats between them, except for Becks who immediately snuggled into Mom’s lap.

It was too cold, and too quiet, and all the adults kept exchanging glances over their heads, and Will didn’t know what any of it meant.

“Ma’am?”  Someone in a white coat said.  “Ma’am?  If you could come with us.”

Becks whimpered as Aunt Martha pulled her off Mom’s lap.  John, sitting too straight with Uncle Matt’s hand on his shoulder, held out his arms for her.  Will wished he was still little enough to do that, crawl into someone’s lap and let them comfort him.  Uncle Dan sat down and put an arm around him, and that helped, a little.

His mom came back out, crying.  “He’s gone.  They – he’s gone.”

Uncle Dan barely caught her before she collapsed.

*** 

“Nope,” Becks says, arms crossed.  “Not tonight.”

Will groans.  “I don’t have _time_ , Becks.  This assignment’s due Thursday and –“

“And today’s Tuesday,” She interrupts.  “You’ve got time.  And it’s game night.”  She closes his laptop.  He glares at her.  “It’s a few hours, max.”

He’s not sure when game night became a monthly tradition, but he does get that missing it is not something anyone will take lightly. 

“ _Fine_.”  He huffs.  “You could have let me at least finish that problem.”

“And then you’d want to finish the next problem, and the next, and soon enough you’ve missed game night!”  She grabs his arm.  “Now come _on_.”

He grumbles but allows her to pull him out of his seat and into the living room, where he stops short at the sight of the game on the coffee table.

“No. No way,” He says, trying to back out of the room.  Becks tightens her grip.

“Uncle Will!”  Kit yells, practically bouncing in place.  “Come play!”

“Oh, this is low, Becks,” He says.  “Pretty Pretty Princess?  Really?”

She grins at him.  He’s sure this is some kind of punishment for trying to skip and do homework instead.  “Are you really going to say no to your baby niece?  I mean, come on Will, that’s not nice.”

“No pictures,” He says, giving up and walking over and to sit on the couch next to Hannah, who is also looking far too pleased by this situation.

“No promises,” She tells him, settling next to Kit on the floor.  He considers how difficult it would be to steal her phone, just for a few hours.

Hannah leans over and whispers, “This time, you’re wearing the plastic jewelry.”

“The earrings _pinch.”_  He tries, only to be stopped by a faux sympathetic pat.  He ducks out from under her hand with a glare.

“You’ll be fine,” She says serenely, more life in her face than he’s seen in a while.  For that alone he’d wear the stupid clip-on earrings. 

“Spin!”  Kit tells him.  He does, and dutifully moves his piece the correct number of spaces.  Hannah was at least kind enough to give him the blue one, rather than hot pink.

“The black ring!”  Kit gasps, sounding far too dramatic for a three-year-old.  Maybe she’s taking lessons from Becks, who fishes the damn ring out of the box and hands it to him.  It barely fits on his pinky, not even sliding down past the second knuckle.

“Not the best start, bro,” Becks says with every attempt at seriousness.  Her mouth keeps twitching, so he wouldn’t call it a success.

“Obviously, I’m doomed,” He sighs, not quite able to hide his own smile.

It’s good, this, even if they’re playing the worst game known to man, to be together and joke and tease.  His sisters drive him crazy sometimes, and Kit can be a handful, but he loves them almost more than he can stand and misses them when he’s at Samwell.

So when Pretty Pretty Princess turns into poker, after Kit’s put in bed, he doesn’t complain.  Even if Hannah is a secret card shark and steals all the goldfish.

***

Kit doesn’t cry when he leaves for Samwell, but she does pout, a lot, and make him promise to come back soon, and buries her face in his shoulder for a little longer than usual.  It’s sweet, and makes Will feel a little helpless.

He’d said goodbye to his mom and Hannah this morning, before they left for work, which leaves Becks, who socks him in the arm and tells him to have fun at school.

He hugs her anyway.

And then he’s driving away, the backseat of his car full of boxes, an extra pair of shoes balanced on top, his hockey bag and a duffle stuffed into the floorboards.  He turns the music up, lets it wash over him, trying not to feel guilty about the part of him that’s loosening, that’s happy to leave this place behind.  He turns onto the highway and rolls his shoulders, loosens his grip on the wheel.  He’s got a few hours to go, but he’ll be back home before nightfall.

Well, he'll be in the Haus before nightfall.  With Nursey.  His shoulders tense up again.  _It’ll be fine,_ he tells himself, _we’ll be fine._  

Now he’s just got to make that true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Homophobia, brief mention of blood, death of a parent, allusions to an emotionally abusive relationship.


	2. First Semester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for minor warnings.

It took them less than twenty minutes to start a fight.

And it wasn’t even a _good_ fight.

“I’ve already put all my stuff up on the top bunk, so –“  Will stopped at Nursey’s glare.  “What?”

“What if I wanted the top bunk?”

They’d had this discussion, during one of Ransom and Holster’s attempts to make them bond.  At least, Will was pretty sure they had, but maybe he was thinking of Chowder?  “Do…you?”

“I mean, you didn’t even ask.”  Nursey crossed his arms, raised his chin.  “This is half my room too, you know.  You don’t get to just make decisions, _Dex_.”

He _hated_ that particular condescending tone.  _Hated_ it.  “You don’t like heights!”

“So?”  Nursey asked, snide.

He wasn’t even looking at Will now, like he wasn’t even listening, like this whole argument was beneath him.  Will gritted his teeth.  He was trying to do _better_ , dammit.  He breathed in and tried for reasonable.  “So, I didn’t think you’d want the top bunk.”

Nursey scoffed.  “Of course you didn’t.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”  Will was getting loud, he could feel it.

“It means you’re an asshole!”

“Well, fuck you too!”

From there, it devolved into an incoherent screaming match that ended only when Chowder ran into the room with his hands over his ears.

“Shut up!”  He yelled.  “What are you doing?”

Will shut up.  His hands were clenched into fists and he was sure he was bright red, and there was something trying to shake apart inside his chest, leaving him gasping and trying not to tremble.

Nursey seemed mostly unaffected, if unwilling to meet Chowder’s gaze.  “Will claimed the top bunk without asking.”

Chowder gaped at him.  “You don’t like heights.”

“That’s what I –“ Will started before Chowder glared him back into silence.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Nursey muttered, scuffing his shoe against the floor.

Will wanted to strangle him.  At least Chowder wasn’t looking too happy with him either, so he was aware that this wasn’t Will’s fault.  Or at least most of it wasn’t.  Almost all of it.

Chowder sighed.  “So, just making sure, you don’t actually want the top bunk?”

“Not…really?”  Look, I just need him,” He said with a gesture towards Will, “To understand that this is my space too, and he doesn’t just get to make decisions about it.”

Will scowled.  “ _He_ is right here.”

“ _You_ don’t listen,” Nursey said, scowling right back.

“ _I_ don’t listen?  Do you even hear yours –“  Will started, still shaky enough that starting another fight seemed like an excellent idea.  Much better, at least, than actually dealing with the fact that he had to live here for a year.

Chowder interrupted before Will could really get going again.  “No!  No more fighting!”  His next words came out plaintive.  “It hasn’t even been an hour, guys.”

And Will had known this was going to be a terrible idea, but less than an hour was bad, even for them.  He was trying, he was, but it wasn’t going to be good enough, not that it was ever really good enough, when it came to Nursey and the team and his temper.

And Chowder’s unhappy frown wasn’t helping him feel any better.

“Take whatever bed you want,” He told Nursey.  “I’m going for a walk.”

He turned on his heel and left.

***

Will wants to say things got better after that disastrous start, that the roommate agreement Bitty made them sit down and write on pain of losing pie privileges helped, but it’s not true.

Well, if was honest, the roommate agreement helped a little.  Even if hammering it out took three days and Bitty smacking him when he suggested they just tape a line down the middle of the room and all the furniture.

Instead of screaming, now they have some weird passive-aggressive icy indifference thing going, where they each do their best to pretend the other doesn’t exist unless it’s absolutely necessary.  Of course, this works better for Nursey – Will’s never been particularly good at passive – but the lack of yelling means everyone thinks they’re mostly getting along, which means no one’s bothering Will about it.  Even if Chowder keeps throwing worried looks in their direction.  And they still play good hockey, which really, is all Will cares about.  Or all he should care about, at least.

In fact, on the ice is about the only time Will feels comfortable around Nursey anymore.  He wouldn’t necessarily have called what they were last year friends, but it was better than this, where every conversation not about plays feels fraught with a tension that’s just waiting to snap.  Will does a lot of running in response, trying to make sure _he_ isn’t the one that snaps.  That whatever happens isn’t his fault.

He avoids their room, spending most of his time in the library or, while it’s still warm, out on the quad.  He’s secretly dreading the coming cold, for the sole reason that it will take away one of his refuges.  Maybe he can just hang out in the basement and pretend to be doing a lot of laundry.

Except it’s raining, and the basement has really spotty internet, and he’s got a skype call with Kit.  Which he refuses to have anywhere people can hear him.

Which is why he’s up in their room, for once, when Nursey comes slouching in after class and falls onto his bed.  Will tenses before deciding to ignore him.  Kit’s got to go soon anyway.

“And we found three!”  She says, clapping her hands together.

“Three what, Kit-Cat?”  He asks, drinking in her excitement, even over the spotty connection.

“Rolly bugs!”  She bounces in her seat.  It’s adorable.

“Rolly bugs?”  He raises an eyebrow.  She giggles.  “What are rolly bugs?”

“They make a ball!”

“She means pill bugs, Will,” Hannah, somewhere in the room, explains, her voice drifting out of his speakers tinny and far away. 

“Pill bugs,” Kit repeats, her eyes wide with the gleeful excitement of learning something new.  “I poked them!”

Will stifles a smile.  “I’m glad you had fun.”

Hannah appears behind her.  “She got completely covered in mud.  It was impressive.”

“Next time, I’m going to need pictures,” Will informs her.  She rolls her eyes, but he knows she’ll do it.  He’s a little surprised he didn’t get pictures from this nature outing.

“Kit, time to say goodbye.”

“No!”  Kit pouts.  And crosses her arms.  Will feels a surge of delight which only increases when Hannah crosses her arms right back.

“Yes,” Hannah says, firm.  “You’ll see him again next week.”

Kit’s dramatic huff is hilarious, but Will manages to keep a straight face as they exchange goodbyes before she runs off.

Hannah shakes her head.  “That kid.”

“I’ve got a birthday card in the mail,” He tells her.  “It’s probably going to get there early, but hide it until Tuesday?”

“Of course,” She replies.  “Party’s at five, we’ll call sometime around then?”

“I’ll be here.”  She waves and hangs up.

He stares at the blank screen for a minute, battling back the homesickness.  Some calls are worse than others, and with Kit’s birthday coming up… He’ll call, he reminds himself.  He’ll get to see her, even if he’s not physically there.

When he finally turns around, Nursey’s staring at him.  He scowls, automatically annoyed.  It’s not like he was doing anything weird, and besides, it’s his room too.  He’s allowed to call his family in it.

“What?”  He growls when Nursey just keeps staring.

“Dude, do you have a kid we don’t know about?”  He sounds…concerned?  Disbelieving? 

Will rolls his eyes.  “It’s my niece, dumbass.”  He ignores the part of him that would be really happy about claiming Kit as his.  “You’ve heard me talk about her.”

Nursey’s _still_ staring.  “Yeah, but I didn’t know you were like, close, or whatever.”

He considers trying to explain – that he helped, is helping, raise her, that he used to get up early and take the morning feeding so Hannah could sleep, that niece, sometimes, feels like too small of a word – and gives it up as too complicated.  It’s not like Nursey would understand anyway.  Small children mostly baffle him.

He starts gathering his things to leave.  No point in risking fate.  “Yeah, well, we are.   I’ll get out of your way in a sec.”

Nursey lets him get almost all the way to the door, still watching, considering, before he asks, in a small voice, “Why didn’t you want to room with me?”

Will closes his eyes.  He’d wondered, last spring, when this conversation was going to come up, but he’d thought he’d avoided it when Nursey never said anything.  He does his best to at least give him part of the truth.  “I knew it was going to be a disaster.”

“You didn’t _know_.”  Nursey, inexplicably, sounds hurt.

“Because this is going so well.”  Will turns around and gestures to their room, the carefully demarcated areas of each of their things.  “I’m pretty sure you’re measuring to make sure your book pile is exactly two feet wide, so it still gets in the way but I can’t call you on it.”

“Um…”  Nursey winces.

“Really?”  Will laughs, short and sharp, no real amusement in the sound.  “And you’re asking why I didn’t want to room with you.”

“I only did it because you were such a jerk about that rule,” Nursey mutters, picking at the bedspread next to his leg.

“I just didn’t want to trip over books every time I climb out of bed!”  Will all but shouts, before feeling abruptly exhausted.  He’s been trying to avoid this exact thing for so long that if feels weirdly inevitable.  “Do you know how tired I am of my bedroom being some kind of weird warzone?”

“It’s not like you’re ever here,” Nursey replies, belligerent.

Will’s done.  “Yeah, because it isn’t exactly safe!”

Nursey freezes and Will tries to figure out what the hell he could have said wrong this time.

“What do you mean, not safe?”  Nursey asks, voice low, quiet and far, far too gentle.

And fuck, Will hadn’t meant to say that, had barely even let himself think it.  “Let it go, Nurse.”

“No.  What did you mean?”  He asks, insistent.

“Fuck off.”  Will puts a hand on the doorknob.  He is not having this conversation, not now, not ever. 

He’s got the door half-open when he hears a soft, “Will, please.”

Which is practically short hand code for ‘this is super important to me’.  Apparently, he is having this conversation.  He sighs, shuts the door, and leans his forehead against it.  “Nursey….”

“Please.”

“You know the real reason I was so freaked about living with you?”  Will starts, not moving from his slump against the door.  “This.  We fight _all the time,_ Nursey.  If you’re bored, or worried, or whatever, you pick a fight.  And it’s fine, whatever, sometimes I do it too, and it used to even be kind of fun, but now there is literally nowhere I can go if it gets bad.  And those days when I don’t _want_ to fight I can’t just avoid you because we live in the same fucking room.”  He takes a deep breath.  “It sucks, FYI.”

He waits for some kind of argument, a rebuttal, anything, but Nursey doesn’t speak.  When he braces himself and turns to look at him, trying to decide what he should do next, Nursey looks lost and… ashamed? 

“I… I didn’t know.  That it bothered you that much.  The fighting.”

Will shrugs.  “It doesn’t – didn’t – it’s just –“ He tries to figure out how to put it into words, the way he’s spent the whole year feeling like he’s walking on eggshells.  “I have to be on guard, all the time, and it’s exhausting.”

“And not safe,” Nursey murmurs.

Will turns away.  “Yeah, not safe.”

There’s another silence, awkward and fraught.  Will forces himself not to leave.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”  Nursey finally bursts out, closer to his usual argumentative tone.

Another question he wishes Nursey hadn’t asked.  “Would you have listened?”

Nursey makes a frustrated sound.  “Yes!  Maybe.  Probably.”

Will sighs, tries to give him something easier.  Better.  “I don’t talk about this, about – about any of this, Nurse, not unless I absolutely have to.  And even then…”

“You wouldn’t talk about it with me?”  Nursey fills in, a wry twist to his mouth.

“Not my first choice, no,” Will admits.

They just look at each other for a moment before Nursey collapses back onto the bed.  “Dude, we _suck_ at being d-men.”

Some of the tension goes out of the room and Will snorts.  “The bonding part, yeah.”

He walks over and sits in the desk chair, hands dangling between his knees, feeling his shoulders loosen.  That went… better than he was expecting.  Much better.  Nursey glances over at him.

“We need to fix this, Dex,” He says, sounding tired.  “I… how do we fix this?”

Will shrugs.  He doesn’t know either.

*** 

He hadn’t realized how little the team actually knew about him until Parents’ Weekend rolled around his freshman year.  It was hard, anything with the word parents in it was, but it wasn’t like everyone had family in town.  Jack did, which meant they got to meet Bad Bob Zimmerman, and Bitty’s mom had come up, while Ransom’s dad had come down, and Ollie’s family lived close enough that they were all driving over for the game.  Jack was pushing them harder in practice than normal, but from what he’d heard, that _was_ normal, and it was much better than it had been last year.  Holster muttered something about ‘death by suicides’ and Will didn’t ask any further.

He was doing a pretty good job of ignoring the whole event when someone asked him whether or not his parents were coming.  In the locker room after practice, surrounded by the whole team.  Of course.

“No,” He said, hoping that would be the end of it.

And it would’ve been, if Nursey hadn’t chosen that exact moment to tease.  “Dude, is it because you have, like, the biggest family of all time?  Couldn’t decide who got to come?”

Will knows now that Nursey hadn’t meant it to be cruel, even if they were still fighting all the time.  Or at least, not as mean as it was, but all Will can think about is the way he and Hannah, hugely pregnant at the time, had been the ones to go to Beck’s freshman orientation, to sit in the audience and listen to the importance of supporting your child’s adjustment to the more difficult environment of high school.

He managed to contain his anger to a vitriolic “Fuck off” as he stomped out of the locker room, but it was obvious that Nursey had hit a nerve, and he could _feel_ the concerned look Bitty threw him.

 _They don’t know_ , he reminded himself, _they don’t get it_.  It wasn’t like he talked about his family.  He’d _avoided_ talking about it more often than not, tired of putting his foot in his mouth when the way he grew up clashed with something everyone else saw as normal.

He’s just managed to talk himself out of being angry when Nursey cornered him at the side of the rink.

“I thought I told you to fuck off,” He growled, everything he’d just tamped down surging back.

Nursey put his hands up.  “Just came to apologize.  Family can be touchy.”

“Chowder or Bitty,” Will replied flatly, crossing his arms, not at all appeased.

“What? Neither. I…” He trailed off when Will glared at him.  “Bitty.”

Of course.  “Great.  You can tell him you apologized.  Now _fuck off_.”

Will half-turned away, expecting that to be the end of it, but fucking Derek Nurse didn’t fucking _leave_.

“Why is this such a big deal?”  He asked, just sharp enough that Will’s hair-trigger temper read it as combative, and he saw _red_.

The next thing he knew they were screaming at each other next to the loading dock stairs, because it was none of Nursey’s business and nothing he would understand, with Will’s fists clenched and his arms clamped to his sides so he didn’t give in to the urge to punch Nursey in his stupid face.

Because he was _still talking_ , all high and mighty, like he had the right to lecture Will on his own family.  “Even your dad –“

“My dad’s dead!”  Will yelled, which shut Nursey up pretty effectively, left him pale and stuttering, and Will took the chance to shove past him and get away.

He didn’t get far before Nursey grabbed him by the arm.

He yanked himself out of the grip and refused to turn around, already feeling shaky and hyperaware and unsure what he’d do if Nursey had an expression he didn’t like.  “What about ‘fuck off’ do you not get!”

Nursey coughed.  “I – I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.”

“Obviously,” Will snapped.  “Just leave it, ok?”

“But Dex – Will –“

“ _No.”_ He swung around, fists clenched, as far into Nursey’s space as he could get and still feel sort of ok.  “You don’t get to ask, ok?  You don’t have the right.  And if you try and grab me again I’m going to sock you.  So _shut up_ and leave me alone.”

This time, Nursey doesn’t come after him.

They don’t speak for two weeks.

***

Their first game feels more like a warm-up, played against a lower-tier team, an easy home game win to get fans excited about the season.

Their second game is against Dartmouth.

The two first-line d-men are big, Holster sized, and the first check Will takes _hurts_.  He breathes through it, does his best to surreptitiously shake it off, and skates away to get between Whiskey and the forward on his tail.  Out of the corner of his eye he sees Bitty zipping around the other players, using his speed to keep himself out of the line of fire.  Tango gets the puck just as Will manages to shoulder-check Dartmouth’s forward away from Whiskey.  He receives a pass, shoots, and Will can’t see but the light above the goal goes off and he tackles Tango in a celly.

 _One-one_ , he thinks.  _We’ve tied it up._  

The smaller of the two d-man glares.  Will smirks back.  Nursey, tangled with Whiskey and Bitty on the other side of the ice, catches his eye.  He nods towards the other d-man – Will’s decided he’s going to call them Tiny and Smalls – and then jerks his head to the left.  Will nods, weak right side, he’s got it. 

They line up for the next face-off, fist-bumping their teammates on the bench as they pass.  Will’s got Tiny this time, the bigger one, so feint left, go right.  The puck drops.  Whiskey, aggressive shit that he is, takes control, and then it’s just a blur of ice and bodies and a small black disk.  Nursey shouts and Will drops back, notes that Ollie’s vaulting over to replace Tango, gets the puck and wings it off towards Bitty, just before Tiny plows him into the boards.

He can’t _breathe_ , all the air knocked out of him, but he’s got to get up, get back in the game, and he tries, staggering and panting, and thank _god_ that’s the buzzer.  One period down.

He barely notices Nursey skating over, but he appreciates the hand to climb back into the box.  He collapses on the bench and pulls off his helmet.  Ford hands him water.  He shakes his head when Nursey raises his eyebrows at him, a silent check-in.  He’ll be fine. 

“How’s it going?”  Bitty asks, stopping in front of them.

“Try to avoid getting hit,” He tells his captain.  “Those two defensemen play hard.”

Bitty nods, sharp eyes sweeping over him.  “Speed?”

Will manages a tired grin.  “Not as fast as you.”

“The bigger one, number ten –“ Nursey starts.

“Tiny,” Will interjects.  “I’m calling him Tiny.”

Nursey gives him a look of pure disbelief.  “ _Really?_ ”

Will shrugs, winces as it pulls at something.  “Refusing to let ‘em sike me out.”

“O…k,” Nursey blinks, shakes his head, decides to let that go.  “He’s weaker on the right.”

“So’s Smalls.  The other one.”  Will clarifies when he gets another incredulous look.

“Ok,” Bitty nods, eyes darting across his team, putting the pieces together.  “Can you two work on tiring them out?  This team ain’t known for its endurance.”

“On it, Bits,” Nursey says.  Biity moves on to the next group of players.  Will drinks more water.  “I can’t believe you’re calling him _Tiny,_ ” Nursey mutters in Will’s direction.

Will just grins, vicious.  Two more periods.  Tiny’s going down.

Of course, it isn’t that easy, and by the time they get back to the Haus Will’s utterly exhausted and covered in bruises, but they _won_ , and right now that’s all that matter.  Well, that and the fact that Will got to hip-check Tiny into the boards a couple times.

“Shirt off,” Nursey tells him as soon as they get into their room.

Will blinks at him.  “What?”

“Shirt.  Off.”  Nursey crosses his arms.  “That check during the first period was brutal, don’t think I didn’t notice, and you took at least one more during the third that was nearly as bad.”

“I’m fine, Nurse,” Will says, confused.  “Since when do you mother-hen me?  That’s Bitty’s job.  Or Chowder’s.”

“You do it to me all the time,” Nursey points out, walking into the bathroom. “I’m just returning the favor.”  Will hears him opening cabinets.  “Shirt.  Is it off?”

“Well, yeah,” Will says.  Of course he takes care of Nursey after games. Or when he’s drunk.  He’s a disaster.  “You need it.”  He gives in and takes off his shirt, wincing when it pulls at his side.  What he does is less mother-henning – that’s Bitty – and more big-brother concern.  At least he likes to think of it that way.  Shitty would probably tell him it’s the same thing.  

“You’re going to be purple tomorrow,” Nursey says, coming back in and wincing.  “Anything we need to ice?”

He shakes his head.  “Did it earlier, while I was waiting for everyone else to finish showering.”  Nursey still looks concerned.  “I bruise easy, you know this.”

“Did anyone check your ribs?”

Will rolls his eyes.  “ _Yes_ , Mom.  I’m fine.”

“So you _don’t_ want the extra-strength bruise balm?”  He asks, throwing the tub at Will.

He barely manages to catch it, too tired and sore to react quickly.  Thankfully Nursey threw underhand, so it doesn’t whack him in the chest too hard.

Nursey narrows his eyes at Will.  “How awake are you right now?”

“Not?”  Will offers.  “We played a lot of hockey.”  They weren’t letting the baby frogs go up against the hulking bruisers if they could help it.

“Sit down and put on the bruise balm.”

Will sits.  They’ve gotten better – a lot better, honestly – since that awkward conversation a few weeks ago, but that just means an unspoken rule that their room is a neutral zone, which means they tend to ignore each other if they’re both in it at the same time.  This concern is new.

He gets all the easy-to-reach bits first, but winces when he has to twist to reach the back of his ribs.

Nursey huffs and appears in his peripheral vision.  “I’ll do it.”

Will gives him a look but hands over the tub anyway.  Nursey’s hands are gentle, softer than Will’s own, and he slumps forward to give him better access.  He wants, suddenly, to curl up into someone else’s heat.

“We should do a movie night or something soon,” He says.  “Just the Haus.  Maybe just the Frogs.”  Give him an excuse to lounge around with Chowder’s feet in his lap and Nursey up against his side.

“Yeah.  There’s got to be some point when we’re all free for a few hours.”  Nursey finishes with a last swipe down Will’s spine and starts screwing the lid back on.

“Need me to get you?”  Will asks before he slowly stands and starts the climb to the top bunk.

“Nah.  Go to bed, Dexy.”

If Will didn’t know better, he’d think Nursey sounded almost fond.

***

Ford tracks him down one day after class.  Will’s pretty sure he should be terrified, but her expression is more ‘determination’ and less ‘you’re fucked’, so he’s hopeful that whatever he did isn’t too bad.

“Dex.  You like math,” She says once she gets closer.

“Um, sure?  I mean, I’ve taken a couple of classes, so…”  He trails off, unsure of where this is going.

She crosses her arms.  “Did you take Trig?”

“Yeah, in high school, um, why?”  He asks, still lost, but pretty sure he’s not in trouble at least.

“Could you tutor me?”

He blinks, takes a second look.  The crossed arms are more protective than combative, and she won’t quite meet his gaze.

“Sure,” He answers.  He’ll find time to review it soon so that he can actually be helpful.  “When are you free?”

She winces.  “Um, breakfast?”

“That’s easy then, you and Chowder can just trade seats…”  He stops, thinks back.  “You haven’t been coming to team breakfast.”  She doesn’t say anything.  “You know you’re _invited_ to team breakfast, right?”

The way her shoulders hunch is its own answer.  She sees the way he’s gaping at her and starts trying to explain.

“I mean, Bitty said I was welcome, but that’s Bitty.  It’s hard to tell when he’s just being polite.  I didn’t want to… intrude on something that’s supposed to be just for the team.”

“ _You’re_ part of the team,” is Will’s automatic response.  Why didn’t any of them notice?  It’s been over two _months_.  Shitty – hell, _Lardo_ – would be ashamed of them.  Will’s ashamed of them.

“No, I’m the team _manager_.  It’s… different,” Ford tells him.  “You’re always a half-step removed.”

Will helplessly spreads his hands.  “I mean, yeah, if you want to be.  But we’re not going to ask that of you.  The team can be a lot – can even be awful sometimes – so I get if you want some distance, but you don’t have to.  We don’t care.  We’d honestly probably be more comfortable if you weren’t… removed.”  He lets out a short laugh.  “Just wait until the first roadie this weekend.  Four and a half hours in a bus with us and we’ll either be your new best friends or you’ll hate us all.”

“Oh.”  Ford looks like Will’s just rearranged her entire worldview.  “Could – could we do some studying on the bus?”  She asks with a small, hopeful smile.  “And at team breakfast tomorrow?”

“Team breakfast, yes,” Will tells her.  “We can try on the bus – maybe without Holster it’ll actually be quiet.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a lie,” Ford says, turning to walk away.  She stops, turns back.  “Thank you, Dex.”

He waves her goodbye and pulls out his phone to text Bitty.  Between the two of them, they’ll make sure Ford knows she’s welcome.

***

He’d been wary of Bitty at first, this short, cheerful guy who didn’t seem to care what other people thought, who unapologetically baked and wore booty shorts and sang along to pop music.  He wasn’t safe, in a way Will struggled to quantify, unsure if he was afraid for Bitty’s safety or his own.

It was Thanksgiving before he really figured it out, even if they’d been friendly for much longer than that.  It was hard _not_ to be friends with Bitty, honestly, especially after that horrible period at the beginning of the year when he basically blacked out if you so much as brushed him.

But Thanksgiving was when Bitty taught him how to make pie.

He was moping around the Haus, wishing he was home.  Kit was just old enough that he could have introduced her to cranberry sauce, watched her poke at it and probably smear it all over herself, but they had a game Saturday and the gas wasn’t worth it if he was only going to be home for twenty-four hours.  Hannah said she’d send pictures, and Becks told him she’d text him all the good family gossip, but it wasn’t the same.

The kitchen of the Haus was always warm, and it was the closest he could get to home, so that’s where he was, head down on the kitchen table, half-watching as Bitty bustled around getting everything ready.

“You ever done any cooking, hon?”  Bitty asked after a few minutes.

Will shrugged.  “Sort of?  Nothing fancy.  I wasn’t really allowed in the kitchen back home, especially not on holidays.”

Bitty huffed.  “That’s a damn shame.”

He lifted his head and tried to explain.  “My aunt thinks men should stick to grilling and sandwiches.  Maybe mac and cheese or spaghetti every once in a while.”

Bitty looked affronted.  “Well, no offense to your family, but that’s one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever heard.  Even _Coach_ knows how to put together a decent meal, though without the pie, bless his heart.”

Will felt his cheeks heat and ducked his head.  _Another_ thing he’d gotten wrong.  “Yeah, well.”

“Wanna learn?”  Bitty offered, studying his face.  “You can chop vegetables for me.  I trust you at least with a knife.”

“Not some of the others?”  Will pushed himself up and grabbed a knife from the chopping block.  Helping was slightly better than moping.

“Would _you_ give Nursey a sharp object?  That boy.”  Bitty shook his head.  “Oh, no honey, not that knife.  Use the bigger one, it’ll work better.”

Will dutifully grabbed the bigger knife and started chopping sweet potatoes.  It was… soothing, in a way he wasn’t expecting, the simple motion of it, like warm-up skates around the rink or the way his feet hit the pavement when he ran.  He finished one sweet potato and started on the next.

“How much do we need?”  He asked, voice rougher than normal.  He cleared his throat.

“Hmm?”  Bitty looked over from where he was checking on the turkey.  “Oh, five to six cups.”

“Thanks.”  He kept chopping.  When that was done, Bitty gave him celery, then onions, then set him peeling potatoes.  They worked mostly in silence, except for Bitty’s humming along to the music and the occasional question, but Will was ok with that.  He was used to the Haus being too loud, but it was early enough that most people hadn’t bothered to get up yet.

“Well, now that you’ve helped me to finish prepping in half the time, want to learn how to make pies?”

Will spluttered.  Pies belonged in the baking category, a subset of cooking he recognized as both ‘difficult’ and ‘not for him’.

Bitty just went to the fridge and pulled out the butter.  Like it was nothing.  “Now, first, we’ve got to cut the butter into the flour to make the piecrust.”

“Bitty!”  Will said frantically.  “I can’t bake!  I just learned how to chop vegetables!”

“We’re just doing a pecan pie, sweetheart.  It’s easy.  Besides, the motions are technically similar.”  And he went off on an explanation about the uses of a pastry cutter.

This was going to end badly, Will knew it, he just couldn’t figure out how to stop it.  Bitty contained a surprising amount of stubbornness in his short frame.  Thankfully, Bitty’s phone rang right as he was about to hand over the weird kitchen implement.

“’Scuse me one sec,” He said as he picked up the phone.  “Mama!  Happy Thanksgiving!  Are y’all already over at Aunt Judy’s?  Yes, I’d love to talk to MooMaw, put her on the phone.”  He pulled the phone away from his mouth and hissed at Will.  “Go ahead and get started.  I’ll be back.  MooMaw!  How’ve you been?”

Will, after a moment of staring in horror, picked up the pastry cutter thing and tried to match the motions Bitty had been making.  Mostly he just got butter stuck between the rungs of the thing, but hopefully he wasn’t messing everything up too badly.

“You can put some force in to it,” Bitty said from behind him.  “Nothing’s going to break.”

He sounded amused.  Will gritted his teeth and pressed harder into the flour and butter mixture.  It was mostly crumbled together, which he’s pretty sure was what it was supposed to do, so that was good.  Then Bitty splashed water on it.  Will yelped.

“What was that for?”   He felt a little hurt.  “You didn’t have to ruin it just ‘cause I was messing up.”

“Oh, oh no honey,” Bitty said, patting his arm.  “That’s just the next step.  A few tablespoons of cold water bind it all together, see?  Use your hands when it gets too difficult to mix.”

It did look more like dough now, and Will, carefully, reached his hands into the bowl and started to squish everything together.

“That’s good.  Use the heel of your hand to really press it.”  Bitty instructed.  Will tried.  “Yes, just like that, good.”

It was… odd, having a guy teach this to him.  He’d seen glimpses of Hannah learning from Aunt Ruthie one summer, before being dragged outside and lectured on the proper points of grill maintenance, and it had always struck him as a particularly female activity, something soft and motherly about it.

Maybe… maybe he wasn’t scared of Bitty so much as jealous, that he’d been allowed to stay in the warm quiet of a kitchen and learn something like this, that he didn’t have to hide the parts of him that were soft, that cared.

That he could kiss a boy in the middle of Lake Quad without consequence, if he wanted.

He rolled the dough into a ball, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge, all on Bitty’s instructions.

“Now the filling.  You can start by chopping some pecans.”

“Bitty?”  Will said, hesitating.  “Um.  Thanks.  For this.  For teaching me.” 

He gave Bitty a hug, quick and awkward and from the side, hoping it was ok, unsure how else to convey what he was feeling.

Bitty smiled at him.  “Of course, hun.  I can teach you some more things, if you want.”

Will hesitated.  He was busy, _so_ busy, and he probably wasn’t going to be any good, but he didn’t want to give up this space.  “I’d… I’d like that.  If you have time.”

“Dex, honey, there is _always_ time for baking.”  Bitty assured him, eyes scrunched up from the size of his smile.  “Now for the filling…”

***

He’s at some volleyball party Chowder dragged him to – he insisted Will needed to get out and blow off some steam after midterms – when he sees some douche cornering one of the volleyball girls.

“But baby,” he’s whining.  “I want you back.  We were so good together, you and me against the world, remember?”

The girl – Lydia?  Libby?  Something like that – is hunched in on herself, obviously uncomfortable.  “Leave me alone.  Please, just – just leave me alone.”

He ignores her.  “Why can’t we just go back to how it was?  I’ll be good, I promise.”

Will sees her flinch when the guy raises a hand to brush back her hair and loses any hesitation he has about getting involved.  He stomps over and yanks the guy away, making sure he’s between them.  “You heard her.  Go away.”

“Listen, bro –“  The guy starts in the most condescending tone Will had heard in a while before shutting up when Will starts to loom.  He has at least a few inches on the douchebag, plus the added advantage of boots, and he practically shrinks back.  Will tries not to find that satisfying and mostly fails.

“Go. Away.”  He repeats, crossing his arms and letting his voice drop lower.

“I’m just trying to talk to my girlfriend,” He tries, apparently too drunk to take direction.

“Not your girlfriend anymore,” Will says, and tries to decide if he’ll be crossing a line by what he says next.  “Mine now.”

The guy’s mouth drops open.  When Will glances back at Lydia-maybe-Libby, she nods, at least willing to play along.

“But, baby…”

“Leave,” Will growls.  “And I better not see you messing around with my girlfriend again.”

The guy finally, finally, takes a hint and stomps off.  Will makes a mental note to tell Farmer to keep him away from parties in the future, before turning around to apologize to the volleyball girl.

Who bursts into tears.

Will’s horrified.  “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean – it just looked like he was bothering you and, um, well – I’m sorry, I –“

Lydia-Libby throws her arms around him.  He awkwardly pats her back, looking around to see if he can spot someone he knows, preferably Farmer, who will hopefully know what the fuck to do.  He’s pretty sure his shirt is getting damp, and – he freezes when he looks down and sees a series of blotchy bruises on her upper arm.

“Let’s get somewhere quieter, ok?” He asks, trying to think of any explanation beyond the obvious, if there’s a way those bruises came from a game or some kind of accident.  She nods into his shirt and he shifts so she’s tucked up against his side, face still hidden, and starts forging his way towards the stairs.  He stops just long enough to snag the sleeve of another girl he half-recognizes, tells her to find Farmer and send her upstairs, before he’s got his arms wrapped back up around Lydia-Libby in the muffled dimness of a second-floor hallway.  Her tears have mostly turned into fine tremors, but he stays there until Farmer hurries up the stairs, confused.

“Dex, what –“ She stops when she sees her teammate and starts searching Will’s face for a hint at what happened.

“Ex was bothering her,” He murmurs, practically mouthing the words.  Thankfully, Farms understands.

“My room,” Farmer says, ushering them down the hall and into her tiny corner bedroom, stopping just long enough to unlock her door.  “Hey, Lyds, you ok?”

The girl – Lydia, good to know – shudders and starts to pull away.  “I’m – I’ll – I’ll be ok.  He – he was just – I can’t – he won’t –“ She trails off miserably, wrapping her arms around herself.

Will barely stops himself from reaching out, feeling awkward and unsure in this tiny darkened space, everything about him too big, too broad, too much to be comforting.  As a d-man, he’s supposed to be intimidating – he just wishes he wasn’t right now.

“I – I should go,” He says, shoving his hands into his pockets, aware that he’s now more hindrance than help.  He leans down to whisper in Farmer’s ear as he passes.  “She’s got odd bruises.  On her arm.”

Farmer gives him a sharp look and nods – she’ll figure out what’s going on, if anything – and Will slips out the door.  He only makes it halfway down the hall before his knees go all wobbly and he ends up leaning against the wall with his hands buried in his hair.  He hates stuff like this, hates imagining how many people passed by without speaking up, even hates himself for his hesitation.  He’s not really in the mood to party anymore, but he’s reluctant to go home without talking to Farmer first, finding out if there’s anything else he can do to help.

He slides down the wall until he’s sitting, looking out towards the staircase, hearing the muffled noises of the party below.  He lets himself drift, a little, exhausted and sick and waiting, and jumps when someone touches him on the shoulder.

It’s Farmer.  He scrambles upright.  “Hey.  Is she – is everything ok?  Is there anything I can do?”

“Lyds – she’ll be fine.  I put her in my room for the night.”  She sighs.  “The bruises aren’t from him.”

Will closes his eyes in relief.  “That’s – that’s good.”  He opens his eyes and looks away, clenches a fist at his side.  “Stiil doesn’t mean he was – good.”

“You ok?”  Farmer asks, and of course Chowder’s girlfriend would be far too perceptive at the worst possible time.  It’s a gift C shares.

“Yeah,” He answers, automatic.  “Yeah, I’m fine.  It’s fine.”

“She’s safe.  You got her away.  Nothing happened,” She puts a hand on his arm, light, a barely-there touch.  “Why’s this hitting you so hard?”

He shrugs her off and walks towards the stairs.  It’s none of her business, this thing he’s barely ever even hinted at.  And it’s not his story to tell.

“Dex.”  He stops at the top of the stairs at the clear worry in her voice.  “Please.”

“It took my sister nearly two months to stop asking permission to leave the house.”  Something wounded, savage takes over his face, twisting his lips into a mocking smile.  “He never touched her.  Not like that.”  She’s silent.  He can’t, won’t, turn around to see her face.  “Let me know if I need to organize a hockey team escort or anything like that.”

Then he leaves, walks down the stairs and brushes past the partyers, taking the straightest line he can to the front door.  He doesn’t bother to text Chowder.  He trusts that Farmer will explain things to him, and if she doesn’t, he can deal with it in the morning.  For now, he just needs to get back to the Haus, to the safety of his bunk, curl up and go to sleep, call his sister in the morning just to hear that she’s all right.

Of course, Nursey’s there when he gets in, watching something on his laptop.

“Dude, everything ok?” He asks.  “I thought you were going to that party with Chowder.”

“I’m fine,” He says, stripping off his jeans and shirt on the way to his bed.

“Did – did you just leave your clothes on the floor?”   Nursey asks, soft and incredulous.  “Is the world ending?”

“Fuck off,” Will mutters, burying himself in his pillow.  He’s not really in the mood for Nursey’s teasing about his neatness.

Something pokes him in the shoulder, and he lifts his head to glare at Nursey, who’s peering at him between the rails.  “Seriously, you ok?  I mean, you usually get mad when I leave so much as a dirty sock lying around.  You’re not sick are you?  Or really drunk?  You’re not acting drunk.”

Will grits his teeth and does not give into the urge to strangle his roommate, mostly because even thinking of it causes bruises to rise before his eyes, makes Lydia’s flinch replay in his head.  “Go. Away.”

“You’re shaking, you know that, right?”

He honestly hadn’t noticed.  “I’m fine.”

Nursey’s head disappears, and that should be the end of it, he should just be able to go to sleep, but instead he pops up with his laptop in hand and tells Will to move over.

“Nursey…”  He growls in warning, but his legs shift out of the way as Nursey clambers up, until he’s curled into a ball at the top of the bed with Nursey at the foot.

“Sitcoms or Disney movies?”  Nursey asks.

Will sits up.  “What are you doing?”

“Not leaving you alone to wallow.  Sitcoms or Disney?”

“I’m not wallowing!”  He’s _not_.  That implies something… shallower than this.

Nursey fiddles with his keyboard.  “I know.  But… that makes it easier to deal with, sometimes.  Easy solution, you know?”  Will stares at him.  He’s not _wrong_ , exactly.  He’s just… not usually so honest.  “So sitcoms or Disney?”

“Disney,” Will grumbles, scooting around so he’s next to Nursey, quilt still wrapped around him.  He hesitates, wondering how much he’s willing to reveal.  “Treasure Planet?  Fair warning, sometimes it makes me – dusty.”

“Dusty?”  Nursey asks, pulling up the film.

“You know, I might get some dust in my eye,” Will says, staring down at the pattern on his quilt.

The keyboard clicking stops.  “It makes you _cry?_   I didn’t know you _did that_.”

“Shut up,” Will grumbles.  He’s never noticed how many flecks of black are in his quilt’s grey border.  Maybe he should start counting them.

“Brah, no shame.”  Nursey pauses for a moment.  “Um.  Would now be a good time to admit I’ve never seen this one before?”

 _That_ causes Will to look up.  “What?  How?  It’s set in space!”

Nursey looks vaguely sheepish.  He shrugs.  “Just missed it, I guess.”

“No falling asleep then,” Will says, already feeling a little better.

It’s… nice, being something like friends.

***

That first semester, he’d signed up for a lot of 8am’s, including a Monday language seminar that made Ransom and Holster stare at him in disbelief.

“Bro, you’re gonna regret that when roadies start.”  Holster had said, glancing over Ransom’s shoulder at his neatly printed off class schedule.

The two upperclassmen were supposedly going to explain to him how they hell he got to all these classes.  So far all Ransom and Holster had done was judge his schedule.

Well, Holster had judged.  Ransom was still staring at it, blank-faced and silent.  It was starting to creep Will out.  He, tentatively, liked Ransom, who seemed smart and put-together and was fast and accurate on the ice. He was hopeful he hadn’t somehow mortally offended the guy with his fucking schedule, even if he couldn’t figure out how that was possible.

Holster, on the other hand, was always too loud too close too much, in a way that made Will both jumpy and defensive.  Thankfully, he managed to contain his flinch if not his scowl when Holster threw an arm around his shoulders.

“Seriously, it’s not too late to try and change classes.  Those gen-eds _have_ to have other options.”

Will jerked away.  “It’s _fine._ I like mornings.”

He still wakes up with the sun, most days, habit ingrained from summers on the boat and getting up to feed Kit, who he’s been missing fiercely the past week and a half since he moved in, and he knows Samwell was the right choice, with the scholarship and the hockey and the CS program, but he wishes it wasn’t quite so far from home.  And Holster’s not helping, with his puppy dog friendliness, like he knows Will when he doesn’t, because no one here does.  Not really.  And he’s not sure they ever will, because how does he explain to these boys who he is when half the time he’s pretty sure he’s saying something wrong?  How does he explain to these carefree boys what it means to scrimp and save and worry about breaking shoelaces, about the feeling of saltwater against rope burned palms, of doing something you hated because you knew you had to?  He shoved his hands in his pockets and tried to ignore the homesickness.

“You – you’re taking seventeen hours,” Ransom said, finally looking up.

“Yes?”  Taking both chemistry and physics in the same semester would do that. “So?”

Ransom looked over at Holster.  “He’s going to die.”

“ _Hey –_ “ Will started, offended, only to be interrupted.

“Even _I_ only took sixteen hours my first semester.”

Holster blinked. “And you only had that one 8am.”  They both turned towards Will with scary synchronicity.  “How do we stop you from dying?”

“ _I will be fine,_ ” Will growled, well and truly annoyed now.  He knew his limits and five classes, most of which were gen-eds, was nowhere close to hitting them.  He rubbed a hand over his face.  “Just – just tell me where I’m supposed to be going.”

The two exchanged glances before launching into a confusing blur of information, full of mostly incomprehensible acronyms and weird nicknames, (He was pretty sure dong tower was the big bell tower, but he’s _positive_ that’s not its actual name) and lots of gesticulating.

“Got it?”  Holster asked after several minutes.  Will definitely did not, but he nodded anyway.  Anything to get him out of this conversation. “Good.  Now go forth and conquer, young frog!”

Will rolled his eyes and started walking towards what he hoped were the science buildings.

“Oh! And Dex,” Ransom said, stopping him before he’d gone more than a few steps, “If things do get to be too much, come talk to me, ok?”

“Thanks,” Will said, appreciating the gesture even if he never planned to take Ransom up on the offer.  “But I really will be fine.”

“Never hurts to offer.”

It didn’t, and he really, really, didn’t want to go into all the reasons he knew he could handle it, so he just nodded and kept walking.  They’d get it, eventually. Maybe.  He hoped.

***

The Halloween kegster is a mess of bodies and noise, Bitty’s pop mix pounding from the speakers, and Will’s not quite drunk enough to be comfortable.  He’s exhausted, and it’s actually November, and he’s wearing some sort of ridiculous plumed hat because Nursey convinced Chowder that they should be the three musketeers.  Well, really, Nursey convinced Farmer who convinced Chowder, a convoluted scheme that involved a corset Ford acquired from costume stock, some jokes about swords, and a lecture on the importance of race bending classic literature.

Which, since Will is apparently a sucker for Chowder’s sad eyes, leaves him in what Nursey insists are breeches and he’s positive are leggings, some sort of long, sleeveless thing, and the stupid hat.  Chowder at least seems happy, though Will can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be, with how much cleavage Farmer’s got on display.  He’d gone all slack-jawed when Farmer arrived earlier, and Will’s positive they’ll be disappearing upstairs some time fairly soon, if they haven’t already.  Which is part of the reason he’s still downstairs, and not hiding in his room.

Well, his and Nursey’s room.

He needs to drink more, probably, but the specter of the last party he was at makes him oddly reluctant, unwilling.  He doesn’t want to miss something he should have seen.  But he also knows without the alcohol to loosen him up, he’ll end up unhappy and tense, everything too loud and too much until he snaps at someone who probably won’t deserve it.

He should just bite the bullet and go upstairs, put in some headphones and watch a movie, give up on trying to socialize.  It’s just that it’s Halloween, which is big with the team, and he feels bad leaving so early.  Maybe if he gets away, breathes for a second, it’ll be better.

The porch isn’t far, and he shoves his way past a few people and out the door, shivering when the cool night air hits his skin.  There are still people out here, but far fewer, and the noise level drops as the door shuts behind him.  His shoulders drop with it, and he takes a deep breath and walks over to lean his head against one of the supports, eyes idly scanning the yard.

There’s a group of girls dressed as… crayons?  Something where their outfits are basically the same, just different colors, near the stairs, a couple making out against the fence, and Whiskey with his hands shoved into his pockets.  Will blinks.  Whiskey doesn’t usually come to kegsters, it’s almost a thing.  It took until the end of last year for him to even consistently make team breakfast.  Even these days, Bitty will sometimes have to tempt him in with the offer of strawberry waffles.  That he’s here is weird and sort of concerning in a way Will can’t quantify, maybe because he looks so lost, standing there in the dark.

Will debates whether or not he should go over there, if it’s worth it, but the big brother in him can’t quite leave someone looking so alone.  The worst that’ll happen is he’ll get told to fuck off.

He doesn’t.  Whiskey just nods in acknowledgement when he comes over, and then returns to staring at the ground.

“Hey. You doing ok?”  Will asks, standing so they’re shoulder to shoulder. 

“Fine,” Whiskey mutters, still looking down.

“Ok,” Will shrugs and settles in to wait.  He can do silence, if that’s what Whiskey needs.  Hell, it’s sort of peaceful, and now they both look less weird than when they were standing all alone.  The patch of grass Whiskey’s fixated on isn’t all that interesting, so he looks up instead, tries to spot some stars through the light haze.  There’s a few, nothing like he could see back home, but it still relaxes something inside of him that had tensed up at the heat and noise in the Haus.

“You can go back to the party,” Whiskey finally says.  “You don’t have to – to keep me company or any of that shit.”

“I’m not drunk enough for how many people there are.”  He answers, more honest than usual.

Whiskey gives him an odd look.  “Is that how you get through this?  Is that how everyone gets through this?”

Will shrugs, thinks about it.  “Not Bitty.  Or Holster when he was here.  Chowder does fine too.  They like it, I think.  Too much noise and all.”

“Tango’s the same.  And Nursey, I guess.”

Will shakes his head.  “Nursey only likes it sometimes.  Mostly he uses the same method I do.  He’s just…not good at it.”

“Did he really almost fall off a table?”  Whiskey asks, with a sort of horrified curiosity, shifting just enough that he’s turned towards Will.

“Yep.  Freshman year.  He’s never lived it down,” Will laughs.  “And that’s not the worst thing he’s done while drunk either.  Anyone ever tell you about the roof incident?”

“No,” He’s listening now, engaged.  “What did he do?”

“Reading room strip-tease.  It was…”  Hilarious.  Also hot, in a way Will doesn’t want to think about, because… well, he doesn’t get to have that yet, or anything like it. Not that he necessarily wants _Nursey_ , but… He shakes his head.  “Something.  Lardo stopped him before his briefs came off, thank god.”

Whiskey smiles, and they go back to watching the yard.  A few people come out and light up cigarettes.  The kissing couple wander further into the darkness, away from prying eyes.  The girls trail inside, giggling, the open door letting the noise of the kegster spill out for a long moment before it shuts with a bang, and something closer to silence descends.

“Why do you do it?”

“Huh?”  Will looks away from the glow of the cigarettes to glance at Whiskey.

He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and frowns.  “If…if you don’t like it, why do you do it?  The… the partying and all that.”

“I don’t – “  Will blinks, stops, considers.  “I do like it, sometimes.  That I… that I can let go, not – not worry for a while, you know?  Sometimes I like that.  Want it, even.  I don’t... control is important, but it’s also exhausting.”  He pauses.  “Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah,” Whiskey says softly.  “Yeah, it does.”  Another moment, and then, abruptly, “I don’t drink.  I don’t – it’s not a good idea.”

Some part of Will wants to ask why, to hear whatever story might be behind that, but the bigger part, the (he hopes) better part just nods and waits, makes sure Whiskey knows he’s listening.

“And I – it’s always so loud, and everyone’s touching, and drunk people suck, but I – “ He swallows, lets his eyes dart up to meet Will’s.  “It’s the team, you know?”

Will snorts.  “They drive you crazy but you’d be willing to help them bury a body so you feel like you have to come to stuff like this?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Whiskey says, rolling his eyes.  “It makes no sense.”

“They get under your skin that way,” Will says, thinking about his own awkward initiation into SMH, the way having forty groupchat notifications become normal instead of weird, the way he couldn’t quite believe at first that these people were actually like this, strange and kind and frequently obnoxious but always, always there.  “You know Bitty broke into my room freshman year when I was sick and left me soup?  I still don’t know how he did it.”

He knew Whiskey had an excellent side eye, but _damn._ “I can’t decide if that’s creepy or nice.”

Will shrugs.  “It’s Bitty, so I’m leaning towards nice.  Listen, if… if you don’t like this kind of stuff, you don’t have to come.  And if any of the guys get on your case about the drinking let me know and I’ll get them to back off.  It doesn’t… we’ll be here, no matter what, ok?”

“I’m trying to believe that,” Whiskey said after a moment, soft enough that Will had to throw an arm around his shoulders and pull him into an awkward side hug.

“We will, ok?  We will.”

Whiskey squirms away.  “Yeah, yeah.  Get that feather out of my face.”

“According to Nursey, it’s a plume,” Will informs him with as much solemnity as he can muster.

Whiskey gives him a look.  Will breaks, starts giggling, and soon enough they’re both cracking up.

“Here, it’s yours now,”  Will says as he shoves the stupid thing onto Whiskey’s head.

***

“Nope. I’m done,” Nursey announced from his spot curled up on the bottom bunk.  “This is the literal worst, I can’t.”

Will drags himself out of his software design homework and looks over to see Nursey sprawled miserably half on and half off the bed, a paperback dangling from one hand.  He raises an eyebrow.

Nursey scowls at him.  “What?”

“Overdramatic much?  Mr. Chill,” He adds.  Not long ago the comment would have been biting, but now it’s practically fond.  He’s not sure what to do with that.

“Have you had to read _The Faerie Queene?_ No?  Then shut up.”  Nursey mutters, managing to slide further towards the floor.

As funny as it would be to watch Nursey eventually overbalance, they have a game this weekend and Nursey’s half-likely to end up with some kind of nasty injury from a fall of approximately two feet.  Will sighs.  “Sit up.  You’re going to fall off the bed, you idiot.”

“It’s easier to be a puddle of despair on the floor.”  Nursey moans, but he does manage to shift most of himself back onto the bed.

Will rolls his eyes. “I’ll read this book if you’ll do my discrete mathematics homework.”

Nursey shudders.  “Bro, there is no way in hell I’m getting anywhere near that thing you call math.  Calculus was bad enough.”

Will turns back to his homework, trying to get back into the groove but too aware of Nursey shifting restlessly behind him to really concentrate.

“Let’s go out.  Grab dinner somewhere or something.  See if Chowder’s free.”  Nursey says after a few fairly nonproductive minutes.

Will quickly reviews his weekly budget in his head.  He had to drop a lab monitor shift because of a roadie, and Christmas is coming up faster than he would like.  “Can’t, but thanks.  Talk to C.”

“But Dex,” Nursey whines.  “We’ve haven’t hung out, just the frogs, in like two weeks.”

“I’ve got a ton of homework,” He tries.  Which is true, it’s just maybe not the exact truth.

“Study break! You’ll come back fresh and all that.  It’ll be fun, promise.  Besides, aren’t you hungry?”

Will shakes his head.  “I’ve already got food in the fridge.  I’ll make a sandwich or something.”

“But sandwiches are _boring_.  And me and C won’t be there. Please, Dex?”

“I can’t afford it right now, ok?”  Will snaps.  Nursey’s eyes widen.  Will feels his shoulders hunch and his ears turning red.  He _hates_ this.  “Stop asking.”

They’ve had this fight before, or something similar to it, and it always leaves Will feeling squirmy and embarrassed and not enough, and he hates it, hates it, so he yells and deflects and lets anger fill him instead, but he’s trying to be better, he is, and this isn’t a fight, not quite yet, so he just clenches his fists instead and stays quiet.

There’s a long, tense moment that feels like forever before Nursey says, tentative.  “I mean, sandwiches can be fun.  I make a really good grilled cheese.”

Will does his best to let his shoulders drop, take the offered out.  “Not as good as mine.”

If it comes out hoarser than normal, Nursey doesn’t mention it.  “Wanna bet?  Chowder can be the judge.”

“Yeah.  Yeah, ok.”  Will pushes back from the desk.  He still can’t bring himself to make eye contact, but this is… better than usual, at least.

“Yo, C!”  Nursey yells.  “Wanna eat grilled cheese for us?”

There’s a thud, and then Chowder pokes his head through the bathroom door, blinking at them, hair sticking up in several different directions.  “What?”

“We need you to decide – “ Nursey starts.

“Did we wake you up?”  Will interrupts.  “Sorry, I forgot you had that data analysis project due this morning.”

“Dude, how do you keep up with that sort of stuff?”  Nursey asks.  “C, we need you to tell us who makes the best grilled cheese.”

Will ignores the first part of Nursey’s statement.  He’s had to keep up with a whole host of different people’s schedules – knowing when Chowder or Nursey have big assignments due is nothing.  He clarifies the second part when Chowder just gapes at them.  “We’re making dinner for the purposes of Frog bonding.”

“Oh!  That’s great!”  Will can see him deciding to ignore everything said before that statement.  “When?”

“Now!”  Nursey drags a still somewhat confused Chowder out of the room and down the stairs.  Will sighs and follows.

***

Will’s trying to drag a drunk, giggling Nursey up the stairs after the Christmas kegster and mostly failing, maybe because he’s also pretty, well, _loose_.  The party’s still raging downstairs, but Will has to drive to Maine tomorrow morning and Nursey asked him to make sure he ended up in his own bed, so they’re calling it a night.

Once they get to their room, that is.

Nursey’s got an arm around his shoulders and he’s got one around Nursey’s waist, the heat of his skin more distracting than it should be, especially with the way Nursey’s still trying to move to the beat of the music pumping out of the living room speakers, the muscles in his side shifting under Will’s hand.

Will’s warm and loose and reckless with it, the bare edges of that overstretched feeling blunted, humming just enough to make him restless, frenetic, without it becoming too much.  He’d danced, or tried to, and he gets it now, why Bitty and Nursey seem so willing to lose themselves in the music, the way it can ground you in your body like running, like a hard skate, like hockey, but without the stakes, just movement and bass and the feeling of heat on sweaty skin.

They all but run into their bedroom door, Will leaning back to balance Nursey’s stumble as he reaches for the key they left on top of the doorframe.  It means his hand slips lower, more of a grip on Nursey’s hip, and he has to close his eyes at the way wanting turns sharp in his chest.

Nursey finally finds the key, and Will forces himself to let go, step back, as Nursey fumbles the key into the lock.  His shirt is stuck to his back with sweat and the way it follows the line of his spine makes Will want to touch, to _lick_ –

He shakes his head, trying desperately to think of something, anything, else, like Nursey’s long-fingered hands on the doorknob, or the way his curls are sticking to the back of his neck, or – _no_.  He stares fixedly at the ragged doorframe, trying to decide if it needs a new coat of paint, maybe the whole Haus could use a new coat of paint, maybe – Nursey makes a pleased noise as he gets the door open, and Will’s drawn right back in to the breadth of his shoulders, the happy look he gets on his face when he’s completed some small task, the way Will wants him, his touch and his attention and his _mouth_.

They stumble inside, Will turning around to lock the door behind them, which thankfully forces his eyes off his roommate.  This, this is why he shouldn’t drink so much, it’s always harder to control the need, but he wanted to not be in control, just for a little while, before he has to go back.

Nursey’s pulling off his shirt when he turns around, and it’s not fair, not at all, as his eyes catch on muscle and smooth skin, the faint scar on his shoulder from a childhood climbing accident, that fucking tattoo…

He notices, too late, that Nursey’s turned around and caught him… well, staring is probably the most polite way to put it.  He can feel himself start to blush, tries to think of any excuse beyond the obvious, but before he can even open his mouth Nursey saunters over to him with a wide, wicked, teasing grin.

“Checking me out, Dexy?  I didn’t think you swung that way.”

“Nurse…”  Will manages to croak.  “I…”

Which is when Nursey, still wobbly, trips right into Will’s chest.

The warmth of his skin is intoxicating, and Will finds himself clutching before he can tell his body no.  Nursey looks up at him, blinking, his face gone soft with surprise, none of the teasing from a moment before.  He licks his lips.

“Derek,” Will says helplessly.  He should let go and step away, he should, they’re both drunk, it’s not like he can have this, it’s not like Nursey really wants it –

Nursey leans in and kisses him.

Will’s brain shuts down, and all he can think is how _good_ it feels, a shuddering gasp escaping as soon as Nursey pulls back, and he leans forward, chasing the sensation, and then Nursey’s got an arm around his back and a hand in his hair and his – a little chapped, but still wonderful – lips are back on Will’s and, feeling bold, he slips his tongue out, just to taste…

And it’s sickly sweet tub juice and Nursey’s own gasp, and he’s never done this before, not with someone he likes, not since that one awkward party in high school, and he’s not sure if he’s doing this right, if it’s ok, but it feels so _good_ and so _strange_ and there’s hard smooth muscle under his hands that he can’t help but stroke, even while he does his clumsy best to copy whatever Nursey’s doing with his mouth.

Nursey breaks away and Will realizes he’s panting, much too hard for what they’ve been doing, nerves and adrenaline and –

“Dude, you’re shaking.  Are you…. Is this…” Nursey asks, starting to peel his hands away.

“Please,” Will chokes out, holding on tighter.  “I want – I just haven’t – touch me?”

There’s a moment of almost shocked silence.  Will starts to pull away, ashamed.  He’s too needy, too much, and this was just a moment that got out of hand, nothing more, they can pretend it never happened.  Nursey grabs his wrist and he freezes, looks up.  Nursey’s gaze is hungry, practically a leer, and what – “First time with a boy, Dexy?”

“Yeah, so?”  Will spits, still fighting, always fighting, _god_ how does he stop –

“Let me make it good, then,” Nursey whispers, and pulls him into another kiss.

Will goes willingly, sinking back into the heat, the fuzzy arousal, the feeling of being touched, held, _wanted._   Nursey runs his hands up his chest, pushes his hoodie off at the shoulders.  He takes the hint, shrugs out of it, and now there’s just a thin t-shirt between Nursey’s hands and his skin.  He wants, abstractedly, for Nursey to break that barrier, to slide his hands under the shirt so they can be skin on skin, but he doesn’t know how to ask, settles instead for mapping out the muscles in Nursey’s shoulders and back, desperately hoping that it feels as good to Nursey as it does to him, that he’s not messing this up.

“Bed, we should do this on a bed,” Nursey mutters between kisses, and tries to drag Will towards the bottom bunk.  He resists only as long as it takes the words to register. 

***

Will dozes, on and off throughout the night, the feeling of another body against his too strange to let him sleep deeply.  He tries to soak it in, catalog each sensation, bitterly aware that this can never happen again, however much he wants it to, however much he wants to learn to sleep wrapped up in someone else, in Nursey.

But he can’t, can’t risk it, can’t afford it, has to pretend straight just a little while longer, until he graduates, gets a job.  Just long enough.  Just long enough that he’ll lose this, whatever it could be.

And he _wants_ it, wants it so bad he could scream.  Wants to kiss Nursey until he gets good at it.  Wants to be able to come home to someone he cares about, to share casual touches and easy conversation, like they have been.  Like they won’t, anymore.  They’ll go back to frosty silence now, he’s sure, maybe if he’s lucky just indifference, but either way it’s going to hurt, losing what was starting to feel like a home.

When the sun starts streaming through the windows he gently frees himself from Nursey’s arms and quietly gets dressed before sitting, curled up, at the foot of the bed.  It would be easier to just leave, but he can’t do that, not to Nursey, so he waits, watches the way the sunlight slides across dark skin, and fights the urge to crawl back under the covers and cling.  It wouldn’t be fair.

Nursey wakes slowly, like he always does, hair messy and swollen-eyed with sleep.  It takes him a few moments to notice Will, but when he does, his lips curl up in a soft smile that makes Will want to cry.

“Hey,” He says, rusty-voiced and beautiful, reaching a hand out toward Will.  “Why’re you over there?”

“I’ve gotta go,” Will forces out, ignoring the hand.  “Sorry –“ He clears his throat.  “Sorry about last night.”

“What?”  Nursey asks, blinking, still not quite awake.  “You don’t – you don’t need to _apologize_ , what the fuck?”

“I shouldn’t have – we shouldn’t have – it was a mistake, ok?”  Will says miserably, wrapping his arms around his knees.

Nursey finally takes in his posture, his clothes, and his face goes hard.  “This better not be some ‘no-homo’ bullshit, Dex.”

“No!”  Will has to stop himself from reaching out.  He doesn’t want – if Nursey thinks – “It’s just – no one really knows, ok?  That I’m… gay.  And, and no one can know, because I can’t –“

“Can’t what, Dex?  Be different?”  Nursey asks, his voice cold when Will can’t find the words.

And he wants to deny it, but it’s the truth, isn’t it?  He can’t afford to be different, to be anything other than the man his uncle wants, not now, not when things were so precarious back home.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers.  Nursey turns away.  “You – you won’t tell anyone, will you?

“No, Will.  I won’t,” Nursey says, sounding so defeated, so sad, before he curls back up on the bed.

Will closes his eyes, just long enough to lock away the desperate need to fix this, make it right, just long enough for one deep breath, before he stands up, grabs his bag, and walks out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Brief worry over possible physical abuse (turns out that's not what it is), Non-explicit mentions of emotional abuse, mention of homophobia, slight dub-con - both parties consent, but both are drunk and one wakes up in the morning not regretful of the actions, but aware that it wasn't a good idea.


	3. Second Semester

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for minor warnings.

“Careful, Kit,” Hannah admonishes as Kit goes to grab an ornament from Will’s hand.  It’s one of their few actually nice ceramic ones, given to their parents the first Christmas they were married.  Will lifts it out of reach and hands her a plastic snowflake instead.  She looks slightly mutinous but accepts the trade, and hurries back over to place it as high as she can reach on the tree.

Will passes the breakable ornament off to Becks and pulls two more tissue-wrapped bundles from the box at his feet, carefully unwrapping a salt dough angel one of them made in elementary school and a small stuffed lobster with a Santa hat.

“Cookies!”  His mom says, coming in from the kitchen with a plate of fresh gingersnaps.  Will snags a few as she passes with a murmured thanks.

“Cookies!”  Kit echoes and tugs at his mom’s shirt.  She passes her a single cookie and puts the plate down on the mantel, out of the grabby toddler’s reach.

Kit trails cookie crumbs back to Will, who solemnly hands her the lobster.  The angel goes to Hannah, who swings Kit up on her hip and walks them back over to the tree.

“There’s an empty spot right there,” Becks helpfully points out.  Kit leans forward and clumsily places her ornament.  Will wishes he could take a picture, his sisters and niece all leaning towards the tree, lit by the Christmas lights.

“What box did we put the nativity scene in?” His mom asks, interrupting his thought, as she rummages through one of the three tubs labeled ‘Christmas’ that Will pulled down from the attic earlier.

“Mom, all the boxes look the exact same,” Hannah says, putting down Kit, who immediately runs over to help dig through the mess of fake garland and decorations.  “Maybe with the stocking holders?”

Meanwhile, Will’s managed to unwrap some kind of popsicle stick sled, an insanely tacky purple plastic globe thing covered in glitter, and a moose in a Santa hat.

“Where did we even _get_ this?” Becks asks, picking up the purple thing.

His mom looks up, tilts her head.  “Probably a church ornament swap.”

“And we _kept_ it?”

Will snorts at Becks tone of complete and utter disbelief, trying not to spray cookie crumbs everywhere. It’s been… good, being home, seeing Kit and his family, even if he hasn’t been able to get quite as in to the whole Christmas cheer thing as he usually does.

Which unfortunately, Hannah’s noticed.

She looks better, more rested, less brittle, and Will’s glad, but it does mean she’s paying more attention to things not Kit or her job than she had been.

She comes and sits next to him while everyone else is digging around for the star.  “You’ve been quiet. Everything ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he mutters, unwilling and unable to go into why he’s been acting so off.

She sighs, puts a gentle hand on his arm.  “I’m not going to call you on the obvious lie, but just know that I could.”

“I’m not –“ She gives him a disappointed look.  He backtracks.  “It’s not important.”

“That’s not –“

“Will,” his mom calls, cutting Hannah off, “Can you go see if we left the star up in the attic?”

He escapes with a sigh of relief, even if he knows they’ll be talking about this later.  Hannah’s quiet, but she’s just as stubborn as the rest of them.  He hopes that by then he’ll have figured out what to say, or a better way to brush her off. It’s not like he can tell her the truth, not like he can admit that he left his d-man, his friend, curled up alone in their room.  Not like he can tell her that he’d pulled off at a rest stop an hour and a half from Samwell and sobbed, everything hitting him at once.  That he’d finally kissed a boy.  That he’d left him.  That the boy was Nursey, who was going to hate him forever now.  That some part of him wanted to turn around and beg for absolution.  He couldn’t even admit the basics, that he’d slept with someone he shouldn’t have, because he was too afraid that, somehow, she’d know that it wasn’t a woman, wasn’t the type of person he was supposed to be attracted to.

The star is in the attic, and he brings it down along with a box of what he’s pretty sure are window wreaths.  He’ll hang them tomorrow.  It’ll be a decent distraction, and then he’ll go untangle the accounts at the store, all of which should keep him far, far away from Hannah, until he can either find a good lie or pretend well enough that she drops it.  It doesn’t seem like either will happen anytime soon.

***

He does manage to avoid Hannah.  He _doesn’t_ manage to avoid Uncle Dan, who pokes his head into the tiny store office while Will’s trying to burn a hole into the desktop computer with his glare.

“Hey kid.” He squeezes himself in and shuts the door.  “I was looking for you.”

Will groans.  “Hannah sent you, didn’t she?”

Uncle Dan shrugs. “She’s worried about you.  I am too, honestly.  The accounts couldn’t wait until after Christmas?”

They could, but Will had been looking for a place to hide out.  He figured he might as well get some work done while he did.

“They’re less of a mess than I expected,” he admits, sidestepping the question.  “You?”

“Hannah, actually. She’s made some noises about maybe getting certified.”

“Yeah?  That’d be good.”  He’d ask her about it later; if it was what she wanted he’d help her fight tooth and nail to get it.

“What about you?”

Will blinks.  “What?”

Uncle Dan sighs and leans against the door behind him.  “What do you want?”

He wants a lot of things, none of which he’s going to get, few of which he’s willing to admit to. “Um, to have gotten an A in my Algorithm Design course?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Uncle Dan says, quiet and too kind.

“What do you want me to say?”  Will asks, frustrated and tired and heartsick from everything he can’t allow himself to say, to have.  He runs a hand through his hair.  “I’ve got a plan, ok?  Two more years, then you can ask me that question.”

Uncle Dan crossed his arms. “So, you’re going to let yourself be miserable for the next two years?”

“No!”  Because it wasn’t _like that_ , there were so many things that he liked, about his team and his family and… “I just – there are some things – I forgot there are things I can’t have, right now.  I’m just… readjusting.  I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, kid,” Uncle Dan says, dropping his arms and leaning more heavily against the door, “You’re always fine.”

Will scowls and ducks his head.  He _is_ fine, that’s how this works.  And when he isn’t, he ignores it until it goes away or he figures out _how_ to be.  This… this is just a little less fine than normal, a little harder to lock away. 

 _It was a drunken hook-up,_ he reminds himself.  _That’s all._

Even if he can’t get Nursey’s face out of his head, the moment when he was reaching for him, before Will sent it all to shit.  And the moment after, the way everything soft in his expression had just drained away.

“Come on,” Uncle Dan says, jerking him out of his head. “Grab your coat.  We’re going for a walk.”

“Umm…” He glances back at the computer.

Uncle Dan shakes his head. “Fifteen minutes, Will.  Take a break.”

“Fine.”  He pulls his jacket off the back of the rickety office chair, throwing it on, pulling his hat and gloves from the pockets before following his uncle out the door.

They wave at his mom as they pass the front counter, where she’s busy ringing someone up, and step out into the cold.  Will lets Uncle Dan take the lead, following him past the diner and down towards the water.

Where they stop, standing and staring out over the sea.  Even if he isn’t a seaman like his uncles, he still appreciates it, the way the surf crashes and the smell of salt.  It had taken him nearly two weeks at Samwell for him to figure out why everything felt off, until he’d caught a hint of the salt water brine Bitty had been using for something and felt his shoulders relax.  Even now, watching the water is soothing, the tangle of worry and recrimination quieting.

Uncle Dan’s not as oblivious as people want to think.  “So, ready to talk about it?”

No. “It’s… complicated.”

“So’s life.”  Uncle Dan laughs at the face Will makes.  “You can uncomplicate it, if you try, sometimes.”

They stand there in silence a little while longer, enough time that Will starts to feel the beginnings of cold through all his layers.  “There’s… a boy.”

“Oh.  That kind of complicated.”  Uncle Dan’s voice is even, without censure.  It’s… good.

Will sighs. “Yeah.  I – we can’t.  _I_ can’t.  And that… sucks.”  He glances over at his uncle, whose expression hasn’t changed.  “I want him.  Bad.  And I’d like to think we’d have a chance, if things were different.  But they aren’t, and I can’t risk – “ he laughs, bitter, “ – what feels like everything.” 

Uncle Dan pulls him into a hug, unexpected but nice enough he has to swallow, hard, against the lump in his throat.  It still takes him by surprise, some days, that he’s taller, but now he scrunches down just enough that he can drop his head on his uncle’s shoulder.

“It was supposed to be different, you know.  Easier. For your generation.  That was the point, that you wouldn’t have to spend so long hiding, not like we did.  That you wouldn’t –“ his voice breaks, “– that you wouldn’t have to be afraid.  I’m – I’m so sorry it’s not.”  He pulls Will away to look him in the eye.  “If – when – you get tired of hiding, whether that’s three days or three years from now, or, or whenever, I’ll be there, ok?  I’ll help with whatever you need.  Including telling certain family members to fuck off.”

Will laughs at that, watery but true.  Uncle Dan doesn’t swear often, but when he does, he means it.  “Thanks.  For – for everything.  I – it means a lot.”

Uncle Dan steps back, gives him an affectionate pat on the shoulder.  “Think about telling your sisters, at least?  They won’t care,” he pauses, turns serious, “and you don’t have to do everything alone.”

Even the thought terrifies him.  “Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

***

Nursey’s gone back to their policy of civil mutual avoidance, which is at least better than the cold war Will was afraid he’d be walking into.  Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.  Even if he deserves it.

The whole mood of the Haus feels weirdly somber, a combination of the awful winter weather, readjusting to classes, and a string of losses on the ice.  Even Chowder seems subdued, and something’s going on with Bitty. Will manages a desultory check-in where Bitty does his best to assure him that everything’s fine, and while he doesn’t really believe him, he can’t find the energy to do anything more.  He throws himself into class, even more than usual, picks up as much work study as they’ll give him, and finds that too often he spends his time exhausted and half-numb.  His mindset recently has been too much like it is on the boat, and that should scare him, would if he wasn’t so resigned to it. Ford’s started watching him, he can tell, and his attempts to smile when he sees her just result in narrowed eyes.  He starts avoiding her instead. 

Which means it’s a relief when Chowder corners him at the kegster Ollie and Wicks throw in an attempt to bring some spirit back to the team, right before Ford approaches with a look of concern.  Whatever C wants, it can’t be that bad.

Will lets Chowder drag him up to his room and stick him on his bed, even if he raises an eyebrow when he closes and locks the door.  Maybe some kind of prank? 

“Tell me what’s going on.”

Or not.  Will may be drunker than he usually is, forgot he’d had an early dinner and so drank too much tub juice on a nearly empty stomach, but he’s not drunk enough for this.  He’s pretty sure he’d _never_ be drunk enough for this.

He looks down. “Nothing’s going on.”

“Bullshit!”  Chowder hisses, and Will flinches.  Chowder doesn’t swear, and he only sounds this angry in the net, and even then it takes provocation.  “It’s – it’s like you’re some sort of _zombie_ , half the time.  You won’t even look at people.  You and Nursey aren’t talking anymore, which, yeah, normally I wouldn’t be super worried about, but you’d gotten close, before the break, and you aren’t even _fighting,_ and you’re not talking to _anyone_ , and Ford’s worried, and even _Whiskey’s_ worried, and Bitty probably would be too if he wasn’t _also_ being weird, and you barely even _tried_ to fix that, when normally you’d be all overprotective mother hen.  _So what the hell is wrong.”_

Will opens his mouth to make another denial, but it dies in his lungs when he gets a good look at Chowder’s face.  He looks almost teary, and his mouth is trembling, along with the fists he’s got clenched at his sides.  He shrinks, ashamed, the alcohol haze making it that much worse.  Upsetting Chowder is almost as bad as really upsetting Becks or Hannah or Kit, worse in some ways because it so rarely happens.

“I –“  He stops, clears his throat.  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

“The truth would be nice,” Chowder says, quiet, devastating.

Will doesn’t know how to respond to that.  The truth isn’t something he’s sure he can give, even if Chowder deserves it.  And he’s too drunk for the vague half-truths he gave his uncle, not that they would work as well on Chowder anyway.  He feels the prickle of tears and tries to blink them back.

He wishes he didn’t feel like he was disappointing his best friend.

“I’m just worried. And if you really, really don’t want to talk about, I’m not gonna make you.”  Chowder pauses.  Will sees him swallow.  “And if it’s just that you don’t want to talk to me, that’s ok, I’ll – I’ll find you someone else, or something, I just – _Please_ , Dex.”

Will’s talking before he quite knows what’s happening, all but compelled to respond to the devastation in Chowder’s voice.  “I’m gay. Did – did you know that?  You’re only the second person I’ve ever said the words to, and last time it – it didn’t go so well, and I guess my uncle knows, but I never said the words to him, not really, and – “ he stops, chokes, realizes what the hell he’s done _,_ “No one can know, no one,  I shouldn’t have told you, not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that – _fuck_.” 

He’s definitely crying now, and he _shouldn’t have said that_ , but it’s too late now, and – Chowder’s wrapping him up in a hug.  He turns into it and clings, shuddering but trying to keep quiet, as Chowder holds him back with all his considerable strength.

It’s a few minutes before he pulls himself together enough to pull away, scrubbing at his face as he does. “Sorry.”

Chowder sighs.  “Don’t – you don’t need to say sorry.  Not for anything.”

Will’s exhausted and shaky and still drunk and he doesn’t know where to go from here, what to do. He’s got the edges of a headache forming and he knows he can’t go back down to the party but he’s not sure he can be in his room either, and Chowder still only knows the smallest part of the story.  He’s not sure if he should tell him the rest.

It comes out anyway. “I messed things up with Nursey. Like, really messed them up.  And I can’t – there’s no way to fix it.”

“It can’t – you’ve fought before and worked it out.”  Chowder shifts closer.  “Maybe –“

“We hooked up,” Will says, and it comes out flat and harsh and dead. 

“Oh.” He doesn’t look up to see Chowder’s expression.  “Lardo was right.”

“ _What?_ ”

That’s not at all the reaction he was expecting.  He risks a glance.  Chowder looks vaguely sheepish, but at least he doesn’t look disgusted, or, or condemning or anything like that.

“Lardo said your fights were at least half repressed sexual tension.  I told her you were straight, and well….”  He trails off.  “Never mind.”

Will hunches his shoulders. “This – this isn’t _funny.”_

“I know!  I know, I just – it was the first thing I thought of.” Will nods.  Joking’s better than yelling at least.  Chowder considers him for a moment.  “Do you like him?  Like that, I mean.  Or was it just –“ He makes a vague gesture, “Letting off steam?”

Trust Chowder to immediately ask the question he’d rather not answer.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“Um, it kind of does?”

“No, it doesn’t.”  He buries his face in his hands.  “I can’t – I can’t be, be _gay_ right now, it’s – there’s too much at stake.”

He hears Chowder shift, move off the bed and then his hands are pried away from his face and he’s looking into Chowder’s worried eyes.  “What do you mean?”

He tries to laugh, but it comes out more like a sob.  “If – if my family, my uncle, finds out I don’t know what’ll happen, but it probably won’t be pretty, and he’s the one helping pay for college and I can’t –“ He tries to pull away, but Chowder’s still got his wrists, “Two more years, I just have to be what he wants for two more years.”

And he can do it, he _can_ , he’s held on this long.  He’ll find a new equilibrium soon, something he can at least tolerate, and if he doesn’t it’ll at least be better over the summer, when he’ll have Kit, and he can help Becks shop for college stuff, and remember why he’s doing this.  Why it’s worth it.  Why he has to.

Chowder opens and closes his mouth, at a loss.  Will both wants him to say something and is half-terrified that whatever comes out will somehow be wrong. It’s not that he thinks Chowder can fix this – no one can fix this, even _Uncle Dan_ couldn’t fix this – but there’s this tiny grain of hope that he maybe knows some way to make it better.

“C,” he croaks, “C, I hate this.”

He’s wrapped in another hug. “I know.”

And then he’s crying, _again,_ and it sucks.  He can’t remember the last time he’s cried this much, isn’t sure he ever has.  Chowder just holds him, babbling something soothing in his ear.  This particular bout of tears is shorter, thank fuck, but it really, really doesn’t help his headache.

“I should – I should probably drink water or something, _fuck._ ” He pulls away and wipes at his eyes.

“Lucky for you, I’m kegster-prepped tonight,” Chowder tells him before reaching over and rummaging in his bedside table drawer, pulling a water bottle out of the junk.  “Here.”

He drinks half the thing in one long gulp.  If nothing else, it helps him regain something like equilibrium.  “Thanks, C.  Not – for more than just the water.”

Chowder nods.  He boosts himself back onto the bed and leans against Will’s shoulder.  Will fiddles with the water bottle.  The silence grows, stretches, not easy but not bad, a breath they both need.

C breaks it first.  “I’m here.  Whatever happens, whatever you need to talk about, I’m here.”

Will nods, feeling too raw to answer that with words.  Chowder puts an arm around him.

“You never did tell me. Do you like him?  Nursey, I mean.”

Will sighs and slumps harder into Chowder’s side.  “Way, way more than I should.”

***

Less than a week later, he’s sitting at his desk, doing homework, trying not to think about any of it.  Nursey’s on his bed, and this used to comfortable, sort of companionable, but now it’s just awkward.  He’d leave if he could think of anywhere else to go, but the library’s too far and the kitchen’s cold without Bitty.

His phone rings.

It’s Becks, which is worrying; Hannah and his mom call, sometimes, but Becks almost always texts, especially at this time on a school night.

“Hey, Becks, everything ok?” he asks, wondering if this the kind of conversation he won’t want anyone to overhear.  If the basement’s reception wasn’t so shitty he’d go down there, but as it is…

Thankfully, Becks answers before he can think too hard about it. 

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s just –“ he hears a soft whimper,  “– Kit’s sick and she keeps crying and I can’t get her to sleep because she wants her mom but Hannah’s at work and Mom’s not here to help, _of course_ , and I really need to study for my bio test tomorrow.”  She sighs. “Help?”

“Kit’s sick?” he asks, ignoring the rest of Beck’s obviously stressed ramble.

“Yeah, caught whatever bug’s going around the daycare – shh, shh, baby, you’re ok.” He can hear wood creaking as she shifts, which means she’s in the old rocking chair in the nursery. “She’s mostly over it, but she’s been super clingy, and will _not_ fuc – fudging sleep.”

Will snorts at the almost swear. 

“What do you need, Becks? I usually just rock her until she passes out, but it sounds like you’re already doing that.  Maybe if you walk her up and down the hall?”  He shrugs, forgetting his sister can’t see it. “Sometimes she just won’t sleep. Remember when she was teething?”

“Yes,” Becks says, as dark as she can make that word while still trying to soothe a sick toddler. “I bought earplugs.”  The grizzling he’s been hearing on off turns into full on crying.  Becks sighs. “What’s that lullaby you sing? The one I hear you humming whenever you put her to bed?”

It takes Will a moment, because he knows the words and the tune but can’t quite recall the name.  “It’s just called ‘Lullabye’.  It’s a Billy Joel song.  Why?”

“I was hoping it might help,” she says.  The crying gets louder.  Will’s pretty sure he hears a few muffled calls for Mama from Kit.  “Shh baby, your mom’ll be here when you wake up.”

Will glances over at Nursey, who’s doing his best to be very absorbed in his book, and decides _fuck it_.  “Put me on speaker, Becks.”

“What?” she asks, distracted.

“You can’t carry a tune in a bucket.  Put me on speaker, I’ll sing for her.” 

“Will, if this works, you’ll be my hero,” she says grimly.  He hears movement as she tries to get everything resituated.  “You’re on.”

“Hey, Kit-Cat,” he says, raising his voice so that he’ll hopefully be heard over the crying, “It’s Uncle Will.”

The crying tapers off, and then, through the sniffling, he hears, “Unc’l Will?”

“Yeah, baby, it’s me. You’re supposed to be asleep.”

“Don’t wanna.”  More sniffles.

“Then just close your eyes, ok?”  He can see it, her face all scrunched up and tearstained, cuddled up in Beck’s lap in that old rocking chair, the nursery dark except for her nightlight, and it _aches_. 

He starts to sing, louder than he would normally so he can be heard through the phone, but with the same low tone he learned when he was first rocking her to sleep.  The sniffles taper off, but he still gets through the whole song twice and is about to start a third rendition before Becks whispers, “She’s out.”

He trails off, but stays on the phone, just in case it’s a fluke.  He hears the door creak and then, “You’re off speaker.  Thanks.”

“Of course,” he says, clears his hoarse throat.  He’s going to blame it on the singing.  “Good luck on your bio test.”

She chuckles.  “Night, Will.”

“Night, Becks.”

He hangs up.  He breathes.  He does his best to push away the ache, and when he turns around, Nursey is staring at him, something raw in his face, his posture.  “Don’t you dare chirp me for this,” Will warns, and gets up to go downstairs.  Even a Bitty-less kitchen is better than this.

***

A few days after his eighteenth birthday, Hannah cornered him in the kitchen while he was looking for a snack.

“So, you’re officially an adult now,” she said, leaning against the counter.

He rolled his eyes.  “No, I’m not going to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes just because.  Even if you’re the fourth person to suggest it.”

She looked confused.  “That’s not where this is going.  Though really?  Why was that someone’s first thought?”

“They can’t tell me to go buy alcohol?  I don’t know, it was the uncles.”

“Oh.”  Hannah shook her head.  “I’m – I’m making a will.  It – I probably should have sooner, with Kit, but I didn’t think about it.  Just, some of the girls at the restaurant were talking, about who in their family would get the kids if something happened.  And I realized I _hadn’t_ thought about it and maybe should?  And it needs be really clear in case that asshole ever comes around. So, I’m making a will.”

“Ok,” Will said, not sure where this was going.  “Do you need me to help with paperwork or something?  Or watch Kit for an afternoon?”

“No.”  She stopped, considered.  “Maybe the second one, actually. But that wasn’t… Look, I…”  She took a deep breath, like she was nervous, and Will tried not to freak out.  “I want you to take her.  Take Kit.  If the worst happens.”

“What?” he said before he’d even really started to process.  “But… but what about Mom?  The aunts and uncles?  I’m –“

She put a hand on his shoulder.  “Will. You love her.  You’re already helping take care of her.  If you don’t want it, I’ll ask someone else, but I _want_ you.”

He stared, mind racing, wanting to just say yes.  But he was only eighteen, there had to be someone better, more responsible.  But Hannah said she wanted _him_ …

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he said roughly.  “But yes.”

She hugged him.  He tried not to cry, overawed and terrified and with a newfound weight of responsibility, determined to be worthy of his sister’s faith.

***

They’ve lost, again, even if they fought it every step of the way, and even Ford looks exhausted as she hands out room keys at the hotel.  Will grabs Nursey’s bag from where he’s dropped it when he goes to get their set and glares when he tries to take it back.  He’s noticed the limp, thank you very much, which means Nursey’s _not_ carrying his stuff however long it takes them to find their room.

Which is good, considering it’s all the way at the end of the hall, opposite the elevators.  He throws his bag on the bed next to the window and grabs the ice bucket, brushing past Nursey in the entryway.  They passed the ice machine on the way here, so he doesn’t have to go looking, and Nursey’s not even out of the bathroom by the time he gets back.  He grabs one of the Ziplocs he keeps in his backpack, fills it, wraps it in one of the bathroom hand towels, and throws it at Nursey, who’s crawled onto his bed.

“Heads up.”

Nursey bobbles the catch, but it’s underhand so it doesn’t matter. 

“Um, thanks.”  He looks at it.  “What’s this for?”

Will sighs.  “The knee that you keep pretending isn’t hurting.”

“It’s – it’s not that bad, promise.  I’ll be fine in the morning,” Nursey tries.

“Yeah, and it’ll be better if you ice it.”  Before, he would have rolled his eyes or said something snarky.  Now, he does his best to keep his tone quiet and reasonable. Civil.

Nursey gives him a look, but he uses the ice, which is good enough.  Will quickly changes into pajama pants and a t-shirt, brushes his teeth, and crawls into bed.  He considers just collapsing into sleep, but he really should get some coding homework done while he has internet and can log into the class’s online assignment pool. He leans over and grabs his laptop out of his backpack, and has just finished logging in to the internet when Nursey speaks up.

“Hey Dex?”

“Hmm?” He looks up. Nursey’s adjusting the icepack.

“Tell me about your family.”

Will gapes.  That’s about as left field of a question as he can think of.  One he has no idea how to answer.  “What? Why?”  And why now.

Nursey shrugs.  He’s still not looking at Will.  “The other day, with your niece… I just realized there’s a lot I don’t know.”

Will wants to be wary, is wary, but he can’t make himself shoot Nursey down, not when he’s reaching out like this.  It feels like some sort of miracle, one Will’s going to grasp with both hands, even if it inevitably blows up in his face later.  He closes his laptop and puts it to the side.

“Um.  I’ve got an older brother, John, he’s an EMT up at Millinocket, older sister Hannah, that’s Kit’s mom, and a younger sister, Becks. She’s a senior this year.”  He stops, at a loss.  He doesn’t know how to talk about this, the part of his life he keeps mostly separate from Samwell and the team.  He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated.  “I don’t – what do you want to know?”

“Kit-Cat?”

Will laughs.  That’s easy enough.  “Is that a question or a comment?  Catherine, but Hannah always planned on calling her Cat.  Then it was Kitty-Cat, which I shortened to Kit-Cat pretty much the day she was born.  Now she mostly goes by Kit.  Hannah doesn’t mind.”

Nursey smiles at that, but it drops off his face quick, like he hadn’t meant to.  “You never mention – I’m guessing the father’s not around?”

“If he ever shows up, I’ll deck him,” Will says, flat and even and with enough menace that Nursey doesn’t push it.

They lapse into silence for long enough that Will considers reopening his laptop.  He doesn’t want to though, wants to keep talking to Nursey, to maybe build back up even a fraction of their easy back-and-forth.  He just doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it. How the hell is he supposed to describe the complicated mess that is his family when _he_ barely understands it?  Especially to someone who doesn’t know, isn’t from the Maine coast, doesn’t understand the way the community can be everything until it’s nothing, until you’ve broken one of the rules.

“Your niece – Kit – she’s…” Nursey trails off, staring straight ahead as if the words he needs are hidden in the ugly wallpaper.  Will knows him well enough by now to see the moment he gives up and decides to ask something else.  “You sing her Billy Joel songs?  Really?”

“I was seventeen.” And shit-scared, and knew next to nothing about babies, and hadn’t had time to learn _lullabies_ while he worked on figuring out everything else.  “I went with what I knew.  She liked it, and the tune’s just difficult enough that I wouldn’t nod off while humming it.”

Nursey gives him an odd look.  “You did that a lot?  Sang to her? It wasn’t a special occasion thing?”

Will snorts.  “I took morning feedings, basically every day, and when Hannah went back to work I started doing some bedtimes too, if Mom also had something.  I know that song really, really well.”  Not to mention teething.  There were a couple nights were he just took Kit from Hannah, told her to go to bed, and spent most of the night either wandering the house or rocking her.  “Not that any of you were ever supposed to know.”

“Afraid to ruin your grumpy old man cred?”  Nursey teases.  Will’s heart squeezes.  It feels right, like so little has lately.  “Hate to tell ya, but Billy Joel?  Definitely old man territory.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. I-only-listen-to-bad-hipster-music,” he retorts, automatic.

Nursey gasps, “You take that back,” and there’s a moment – a short one, but still – where Will’s worried he’s gone too far, pushed too hard too soon, even if this is pretty tame for them, but then something in his brain registers the gasp as fake, and he relaxes.

“You like the music at Starbucks.  _Starbucks_.” 

“So?”  Will just raises an eyebrow.  “Whatever.”  Which means Will’s won.  “Tell me about your mom?  You don’t really talk about her.”

And now they’re back to questions Will doesn’t know how to answer.

“My mom… so you know my dad died when I was young, and so she took over the hardware store.  It – it’s a lot of work, and she was – is – there most days, and especially after I started hockey and wasn’t really hanging around the store, I didn’t – she was around, as much as she could be, but that –“ he stops, trying to figure out how to say this in a way that doesn’t sound accusing, “There were things she missed.  Not – not the important stuff, mostly, but, well, stuff.”

More and more since he’s gotten older, he doesn’t say.  It’s worse for Becks, he knows, recognizes that his mom has become more absent as the years go on, not that he can blame her for trying to carve a little of own her space out from the mess that is the store and them and the extended family. He’d probably do the same, if he didn’t spend more than half the year at Samwell.

“I…” Nursey trails off. At least he’s finally looking at Will. 

He gives him a small smile. “It’s complicated.  My whole family’s complicated.”

“Sounds like it.”  Nursey laughs, but it’s not cruel.  “I wasn’t expecting you to be this honest, tbh.”

Will shrugs.  “You deserve it.  As much as I can give.”  He stops, laces his fingers together so he doesn’t fidget.  “I – I want to fix this.  If we can. If it’s possible.”

Nursey doesn’t answer right away, and Will tries not to take that as a denial.  He lets his fingers tighten, stares at his hands.  He wants, so badly, to make things right again, but Nursey has to want it too, and right now Will’s not sure he does.  He glances up, but Nursey too is looking down, staring at the ice pack on his knee, and Will can read every intention when he’s in a helmet on the ice and can’t tell a single thing about what he’s thinking now, barefaced and tired.

“Was I just an easy fuck? Is that all it was?”

Will jerks his head up and gapes, wondering how the fuck Nursey got that idea, half-reaching for him before he even realizes he’s doing it.

“Some –“ his voice breaks, “ – some kind of experiment?”

“No!”  Will blurts out as soon as he finds his voice.  “I –“ _want you_ , “ – got carried away.”  Which isn’t _the_ truth but is at least _a_ truth.  “I shouldn’t have – it wasn’t fair to you when I knew that – that nothing could really happen.  I – it’s not you, it was never you, it was my stupid hang-ups –“  He swallows, lowers his hands.  “I – I’m sorry, if you ever thought – I wasn’t trying to use you, or anything like that, I _swear_.”

“Ok.”  Nursey still won’t meet his eyes, but his voice holds less pain.  “Ok.  I believe you.”  He takes the ice pack off his knee and puts it on the bedside table before slowly easing his way under the covers.  “Night, Dex.” 

He reaches over and turns off the lamp.

 _Well,_ Will thinks,  _I guess we’re done talking._ He puts away his laptop mostly by feel, trying to be quiet, but still shaky and unsure, adrenaline doing a poor job of covering up the combined exhaustion of a hard game and a hard conversation.  _It’s at least a start_ , he tells himself, _a start_. 

***

He’d ended up in Uncle Dan’s repair store a few months after his dad died, still quiet and withdrawn and angry at the universe.  His mom had dropped him off, begging his uncle to look out for him, just for an hour or so, while she took Becks to the doctor.  Uncle Dan, easygoing as ever, agreed, and for the first time Will was ushered into the space that would become a sort of sanctuary.

It was small and cluttered, but clean, a few clunky refurbished desktops on a high shelf to the side, old watches in a display case underneath, what looked like some kind of robot in the corner, and a series of appliances, including an old green fridge with weird handles that Will really wanted to play with.  There were pieces of something, or maybe somethings, neatly scattered across the counter, cogs and bits of wire and plastic casing. Uncle Dan ushered him behind the counter and through a curtain to a small back room, covered in even more things, some of them stacked haphazardly on shelves, some in pieces on oil-stained rags.

“Here,” Uncle Dan said, sitting Will down on a high stool in front of an old storm radio.  “Think you could take this apart for me?”

Will stared at him suspiciously.  Adults didn’t like it when he took things apart, even if it was just to see how they worked.  “I won’t get in trouble?”

Uncle Dan cracked a smile. “Nope.  I need to see what’s inside.”

Will kept staring, but the smile didn’t go away.  “Ok.” He turned around and started running his hands over the thing, looking for cracks or holes.  “You got a screwdriver?”

Wordlessly, his uncle pointed to a hanging tool board.  “You can use anything that doesn’t have to be plugged in, ok?  I’ll be out front if you need me.”

Will nodded, already half-standing on the stool rungs and reaching for the screwdriver.  He’d been given actual _permission_ to take something apart and he wasn’t going to waste it.

It didn’t take him long to dismantle the radio, spreading the pieces out around him, trying to keep track of the tiny screws, clumsily prying things apart when they got stuck. Uncle Dan came back in just as he’d started trying to fit things together into new shapes, creating carefully balanced stacks of all the pieces.

“Now,” he said, startling Will, “you want me to show you how to put it back together?”

“But – it was broken,” Will said, confused.  He’d tried turning it on and nothing had happened.

“Yeah, kid,” Uncle Dan said, and that soft smile came back, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t fix it.”

Will eyes widened, and he nodded vigorously.  If there was a way to make things better, to make broken things work again, he wanted to know how to do it.

“Where do you think we should start?”

They’d sat there until his mom came back, Uncle Dan naming parts and showing him how things fit together. The radio, which it took them another afternoon to fix, ended up on a shelf in Will’s room, and Tuesdays after school became repair shop days, until, by the time he was in high school, he could fix almost anything a customer brought in.  He learned to treasure his time in that tiny backroom workshop, the quiet and the way fixing things soothed an ache inside him he didn’t want to quantify.

He’d never been adequately able to explain it to Uncle Dan, the gift he’d given him, but he thought maybe he knew anyway.

***

“Go! Bake me a pie,” Ford says as she shoves him into the kitchen. “I like cherry or chess.”

All of his protests so far have done nothing, but that doesn’t mean he’s just going to give up.  “But Ford, I really need to –“

“Nope!” she says brightly. “Chowder checked.  All your assignments can wait.  And I want pie.”

“But _Ford_ –“

He’s interrupted by Ollie skidding into the doorway.  “We got ‘im, boss!”

“Excellent.”  Ford’s smile has a sharpness that puts Will on edge. She’s _planned_ something.

“What in the good lord’s name is going on?  Wicks?”

And that’s Bitty.  Will thought he was supposed to be in the library. Instead, Wicks is half dragging him into the kitchen, a bewildered look on his face.  He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head when he sees Will, a silent _what’s going on_ , but Will shrugs.  He’s just as confused as Bitty.

“Hello, Captain!” Ford says, far too cheerfully.  “This is an intervention.”

Bitty sighs.  “Ford, honey, I know you and Tango have been bonding over _How I Met Your Mother_ , but that doesn’t mean you have to re-enact it or anything.”

“Bro, we should have made a _sign_ ,” Wicks says.  He and Ollie fist bump.

Now it’s Ford’s turn to sigh.  “Not that kind of intervention.  Thanks for your help, you two, but I’ve got this from here.”

“Yes, boss,” the two chorus in perfect unison, before shoving each other out the kitchen door.

“You two,” Ford says, turning back to Will and Bitty, “are staying in this kitchen and cooking something together.  I don’t really care what is, though pie is always appreciated.  Have fun, we’ll be watching.”  She stops in her walk out. “Well, not watching-watching, just making sure you don’t leave.  Bye!”

And then she’s gone. Will stares at Bitty.  Bitty stares at Will.

He takes a deep breath. “What the fuck?”

Bitty snorts.  “I’ve got no earthly idea.  Maybe it’s a prank?”

Will considers it. Maybe, but if so it’s an exceedingly weird one, and he can’t quite imagine Ford being involved.  To be fair, if Ford had come to him and asked for his help doing something like this for Bitty, he probably would have said yes. He’s been distant and quiet lately, in a way that would have Will frantic to fix it if he wasn’t so wrapped up in his own issues. 

Bitty’s been on his phone, texting someone, probably either Jack or the group chat, and now he puts it down on the table in disgust.  “Apparently everyone’s in on this, whatever it is.”

And there goes Will’s half-formed idea of convincing Chowder or maybe even Whiskey to rescue them. Though, Ford had mentioned Chowder earlier, so he was probably involved in some way anyway…

He gives in to the inevitable.  It’s not like he dislikes cooking with Bitty.  He usually enjoys it even, he just hasn’t in a while, too stressed or tired or trying too hard to avoid the Haus.  Most of his meals have been sandwiches, or eggs, or other things he can make in less than ten minutes.  To be fair, _Bitty_ hasn’t cooked in a while either, which is wrong in all sorts of ways.

He rubs a hand over his face.  “So, what do you want to make?”

“I –“  Bitty pales. “I don’t know.”

Will stiffens.  Bitty always has a new recipe he wants to try or an old one he wants to revisit.  The idea that he doesn’t is vaguely terrifying.  He must be worse off than Will thought.

“Um... everything ok?”

“Of course!”  Bitty turns away.  “I’m fine.”

Will tries to decide if he wants to push it or not.  The fact that neither of them can run away on pain of Ford means it would be easier, but it also makes Will feel less like doing it.  He hates feeling trapped, and is sure Bitty does too, and he would be, even if it wasn’t precisely Will’s fault.

“Ford mentioned wanting pie?” he offers instead.

Bitty takes the out.  “I’m pretty sure we don’t have cherries, but chess is easy.”

“I’ve never even heard of chess pie,” Will mutters as he gets out the ingredients for a pie crust.

“It’s Southern.  Very Southern.”  Bitty’s rummaging in the cabinet that doubles as a sort of pantry and pulls out dried beans with a noise of approval.  “It’s sort of like lemon curd?  But not lemony.  My Moo-Maw’s made it for years.”

“Are there beans it in?” Will asks, nodding towards the bag in Bitty’s hand.  It’s odd, but sometimes the ingredients that go in Bitty’s pies are odd.  Rosemary raspberry came to mind.

“What? No!  These are for pie weights.”  Will raises an eyebrow.  Like he knows what that is.  “They weigh down the crust so it doesn’t bubble or pull away from the tin.”

“Okay.”  Baking was _weird_.

They move together smoothly, Will competent sous to Bitty’s master chef, despite the length of time it’s been since they’ve done this.  It’s soothing, slipping into the old routines.  Quiet, until Bitty seems to remember himself and puts on music, something a little less bright than normal, but still pop.  They don’t talk, except for Bitty’s instructions and Will’s soft clarifications.  That’s not as odd as it could have been; Bitty had a tendency to chatter, but around Will, sometimes, he let himself go quiet, let himself just be.

Will’s gotten pretty good at pie crust since his first attempt that Thanksgiving his freshman year, and it rolls out easily under his floured hands.  “Here,” Bitty says, pulling out one of the good pie tins, ceramic with a blue floral pattern decorating the middle and sides.  It had belonged, first, to Bitty’s mother, and he only sometimes let other people handle it.

Will lays the dough carefully in the tin, cutting off any excess and crimping the edges.  Bitty lines it with parchment paper before pouring the dried beans in and putting it in the oven.

“Now,” he says, straightening up and moving to the sink to wash his hands, “we wait.”

Will stacks all the things they used in the sink and begins the first round of dishes, watching Bitty out of the corner of his eye.  He’s leaning on the kitchen counter, staring into space, looking way too tired and almost small.

The crust is in the oven just long enough for Will to finish the dishes, and Bitty sets him to removing the beans while he starts on the filling.

“How’s Jack?”  Will ventures, hopefully a safe enough question. He doesn’t think any of this has to do with their relationship, but he could be wrong.

Bitty musters up a smile. “Good.  They’ve had a strong season, and it’s looking good for playoffs.”

Maybe something _is_ up with Jack.  “Thank you, Falconer’s press agent.  How’s _Jack?_ ”

There’s a pause that Will tries not to read as ominous.  “I – I haven’t actually talked to him in a few days.”

Will freezes, mind blaring _red alert, red alert_ , and tries not to freak out.  “Oh?”

“It’s – we’ve been busy.”

Bitty’s hands are shaking, and Will takes away the bowl before he drops it.  “Bitty…”

“I’m fine.”

Will has a sudden insight into how Chowder must have felt, not too long ago.  “No, you’re not.  Talk to me, please?  Or someone, if you won’t – or can’t – talk to Jack.”

Bitty sniffs, gathers himself together, and takes the bowl back.  “It’s silly.  Besides, you’ve got enough on your plate.”

“That’s not – this isn’t about me!”  Will sort of wants to shake him.  “Bitty – Eric – please.  Just tell me what’s going on.”

Nothing.  Bitty turns away, and they continue making the stupid pie in silence.  Will doesn’t know what else to do, and his failure hurts.  He hates being helpless, especially when it seems like that’s all he’s been recently.

They get the pie in the oven and Will’s contemplating whether or not Ford will let him escape when Bitty finally says something.

“He’s completely wonderful, you know?”  Bitty’s sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at his hands.  He sounds wrong, quiet and weirdly flat.  “Jack, I mean.  He works so hard, has done so much, and I – well, I’m not even sure I’m going to graduate.”  He looks up at Will then, and there are tears in his eyes.  “What do I do with that?”

Will stares, before latching on to the part of this he can _fix_. “Are you failing a class or something? We could help, find a tutor, I mean, depending what it is one of us could even tutor you, or – we can figure something out, we’re good at that.”

“That’s – school’s not really the problem.  Or it is, but only a part of it, and – ugh,” Bitty clutches at his head.  His voice, when he finally continues, comes out soft, a little broken.  “I’m worried I’m not enough for him.”

And oh, _oh_. Will gets that.  The fear.

“I’ve never been enough,” he offers, a confession in turn.  He isn’t John, charming and easy, or his father, dead too soon and rosy with memory. He’s not enough of a lobsterman for his uncle, won’t be enough of a man in general when he finds out.  He’s not good like Chowder or smart like Nursey or kind like Bitty.  “I – You like me anyway.  I think. A few others do too.”  He takes a breath, musters up a smile, and does his best to add some more reassurance.  “Besides, I had a whole discussion with my sister after you and Jack came out about how you were too good for _him_.”

Bitty stares at him, eyes still wet, like he’s gone a little crazy, like he’s claimed that the world’s not round, but oval, something just slightly off from what he’s always been told. Will shifts his weight, feeling the first stirrings of embarrassment.  He isn’t this honest, generally, and maybe it was a mistake.  This isn’t about him, it’s about Bitty, and Jack, and it’s not like he’s ever been in a relationship.  Even his singular hook-up had gone spectacularly wrong.

Then Bitty’s hugging him, arms wrapped around his waist and face smushed against his shoulder.  Will carefully hugs him back.

“He loves you,” Will whispers after a moment.  “It’s so obvious it’s gross, and literally everyone except Chowder knew before you told us.  Go call him. I bet he’s freaking out.”

Bitty sniffs.  “The pie…”

Will rolls his eyes.  “I’ll deal with it _and_ Ford.  Go.”

He bolts for the stairs and Will overrides Ford’s “ _Hey_ ,” with an exasperated, “Let it _go,_ Ford.”  Bitty escapes, but Ford comes in to glower at him.

“Do I have pie then?”

“It’s in the oven.” Will all but collapses into one of the kitchen chairs.  He’s _tired_ , going a little numb from the release of worry and tension.  “Chess. I’d never made it before.  Did you know that sometimes pie crusts need weights?”

Ford’s face softens, and she uncrosses her arms.  “You ok?”

He avoids the question. “He’ll be fine.  Just… senior year stuff, I guess.  Mostly.”

Ford, damn her, is too smart, too perceptive, too much like his sisters.  “I’m glad, but that’s not what I asked.  Are _you_ ok?”

Probably not, but he’s not going to tell her that.  He’s already been too honest once today, he can’t do it again.  And Bitty’s different, easier.  He took him in to his bright kitchen and gave him flower and butter and spices, let him work in silence, showed him how to make bread. Ford… he likes her, a lot, thinks she’s smart and competent and wonderful, but he doesn’t know her well enough to show her his cracks yet, not the ones he barely shows _Chowder_.

He manages a smile.  “I’m fine.”

“Ok.”  He can tell she doesn’t believe him.  “Ok.”

The oven timer goes off. He gets up, takes the pie out of the oven, turns it off. 

“It probably needs to cool. Can you keep the guys out of it for fifteen minutes?”

She nods, bites her lip. He starts to leave.

“We’re just trying to help,” she says, stopping him.  “Sorry if we did it badly.”

He feels a rush of – of _something_ , comfort or fear or grief, because he has people who care, who still care, even when he’s tried to distance himself, even when he’s not enough.  It’s warming but terrifying, and he knows it won’t last, but for now –

He clears his throat. “Maybe less kidnapping, next time. But, thanks.  For trying.”

***

He was fifteen when he found out what hockey cost.  He’d known, intellectually at least, that he’d be working on the boat to pay off his equipment, the club fees, all the little costs, but he hadn’t known what it was like, the work and the waves. 

The first few weeks were made up of sore muscles and exhaustion, thanking any deity he could think of that he didn’t get seasick after the first few days, and learning more about lobsters than he ever wanted to know.  Hannah left not long after he started, his mom was working, and Becks was still young, so the first time he came home with a long slash on his bicep, he bandaged it himself, struggling with the angle as he cleaned it.

He hated it.  But he knew, no matter what, this was his life for the summer, and if he wanted to continue hockey, for the next as well. And he loved hockey, the only thing that made school bearable, where he had teammates, if not quite friends.  So, he gritted his teeth and did it, learned the nuances of the pieces of ocean his uncles had claimed for their own, worked through the soreness and exhaustion, begged off late night hangouts because he knew he had to get up before the sun the next day.  And still, he wasn’t good enough for Uncle Matt.  He couldn’t feel the currents like he needed to, didn’t learn fast enough, still messed up too often.  A good week didn’t end in a lecture. 

There weren’t many good weeks.

***

“Shitty told me to give you a hug.”

Will looks up from his laundry to see Nursey at the top of the stairs, arms crossed.  Will isn’t even sure when the last time he talked to Shitty was, so, “What?”

“I was talking to Shitty, and he said to give you a hug. From him,” Nursey clarifies as he walks down the stairs.

“O…kay.”  Will turns on the dryer and starts to fold the clothes in his basket, giving himself something to do.  Sometimes, the ways of Shitty are just fucking mysterious.  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Even if things are getting better, cautious conversations and light teasing, they haven’t really touched, not since that night, and it’s… for the best.  Really.

“I don’t get you,” Nursey grinds out, and Will glances up to see him looking weirdly unchill.  “And trust me, I’ve been trying, but every time I think I’ve got it you do something to screw it up.  I’m good at people, I’ve always been, but you, you – ugh!”

“I’m… sorry?”  Will ventures, watching as Nursey paces around the basement, trying to figure out what in their minute of conversation got him so worked up.

“You were a judgmental prick!  A small-town Republican who grew up Catholic, probably homophobic, almost definitely racist, and stubborn with it!  I figured you out, I knew how to deal, but then you started fucking _learning_ , were eager about it, half the time legitimately didn’t _know_ , and I thought, ugh, fine, reformable, but I still don’t have to _like_ him, even if he has my back on the ice, and then you _grew_ on me, like, like, like some sort of redheaded _fungus_ –“

“Hey!”  Will protests, mind reeling.

Nursey just gets louder. “- and _then_ we moved in together, and you weren’t the complete dick I was expecting after you freaked out about it so bad, and you’d bring me tea when I was writing and let me take first shower, and you _had a kid_ –“

“She’s not –“  Will tries.

“ – and you keep saying she’s not yours, _I know_ , but the way you look at her over a _screen_ , I didn’t know anyone, much less _you,_ could be that tender, and I got _even more confused._   You’re grumpy old man Dex!  I knew that, could work with that.  But then _that_ happened and I had to figure you out all over again!  And I could do that, I could, I was.”  He, finally, it seems like, takes a breath, pauses.  “Until you kissed me.”

Will doesn’t know what to say to that, to any of it, so he doesn’t, just stands there helpless, a pair of sweat pants in one hand, wanting to reach out, to do something.

“And it –“ for the first time Nursey’s voice breaks, “ – it was  _wonderful_.  You were – there, in front of me, and I could see you, for once, desperate and wanting _me_ and I realized that I’d been wanting you for _ages_ and just hadn’t known, hadn’t realized –“

He stops, and Will knows what comes next, forces it out through a dry throat because Nursey deserves that much, deserves the truth from Will’s mouth, “And then I left.”

“Yeah,” Nursey laughs, small and pained.  “Yeah, you did.”

There’s the crux of it, the crack neither of them has quite been able to bridge, the one Will carved out with his own two hands because it was the only way he could think of to keep the rest of his life from splintering.

And he has no right, no right at all, but, “And now?  Who do you think I am now?”

Nursey sighs and comes over to lean on the washing machine next to him.  “I don’t know.  And that’s the problem.”

Well, it’s not an outright rejection.  Will goes back to folding clothes with shaking hands.

“Chowder, when I was ranting about boys in the closet –“ Nursey rolls his eyes, “ – unspecified boys, don’t freak out.”

Will tries to relax his shoulders, soothe the instinctive reaction.  “Chowder knows, now,” he mutters, not looking up.

“Really?  When did that – never mind.  Anyway, he reminded me that a lot of times people have a reason.” A pause.  “I want to know yours.”

This feels like a test, but the question’s easy, even if no-one’s ever outright asked it before.  “My uncle wouldn’t approve.”

“So?”

Will shrugs, keeps folding. “He pays room and board for college. I – If I can’t make it work, I’ll have to see if he’ll do the same thing for Becks, just for a year or so until I can get a job, start making some actual money.  That all goes away if he finds out.”

He tries for matter-of-fact, because it is, just another fact of his life that he has to deal with, even when it sucks, like the boat and his mom and the struggling hardware store. It helps that he’s pretty sure Nursey doesn’t know him well enough to catch any slips.

He’s run out of things to fold, which means he no longer has an excuse to not look at Nursey.  That doesn’t mean he’s going to actually do it though, instead choosing to smooth out a curled-up t-shirt hem, fiddle with the neck of a sweater.

“That,” Nursey says finally, voice flat, “is extremely fucked up.  You know that, right?”

Will closes his eyes. He knows, of course he knows, but to have someone just come right out and _say_ it… “Yeah.  I know.”

“You… you could still be out here, if you wanted,” Nursey says hesitantly.  “Like Bitty was.  We’d be careful.”

He shakes his head. He wishes, but… “I can’t risk it. And I – I can’t compartmentalize like that.  There’s already too many things that I can only be either here or there.  I can’t add another.”

And they bleed, they always bleed, they have to, but there are parts of him that his team has never, probably will never, understand, about the ways he carries duty and loss and anger, the smell of sea brine and day-old bait, what it means to get up and rock an infant back to sleep before driving you and your sister to school. And there are parts of him that he knows Uncle Matt will never know, that he’s half-terrified will make his sisters grow distant, how he’s learned laughter and freedom and a different kind of love, the quiet of a kitchen while bread’s baking, what it costs to keep someone safe on the ice.

“Two years.  That’s the deal.  Two years and I’ll be graduated and hopefully have a job and it won’t matter anymore what I do.  If I’m not… what he wants.  It _won’t matter_.”

His fists clench on the last sentence, a promise or a hope, he’s not sure which, but he means it with every sinew of his body and all the blood in his heart.

He starts, just a little, when Nursey leans his shoulder against him, not quite a hug but comforting nonetheless.

***

Their game finally, _finally_ , picks up, so Will doesn’t get to go home for spring break like he half planned to.  He can’t find it in himself to be too disappointed, not when it means they’re still in the playoffs.

Especially when somehow, impossibly, he looks up into the stands and sees his family, Becks and Hannah and Uncle Matt with Kit.  He’s sure his jaw drops and he almost stumbles but they’re _there_ and _cheering_ and how else is he supposed to react?

“Dude, you all right?” Whiskey mutters, glancing over in concern.

“My – my family’s here,” he explains.  “I didn’t know they were coming.”

“You better score a goal for them, then,” Nursey says with a grin. 

Bitty jostles his shoulder. “Bring ‘em by the Haus later.  I’ll make pie.”

He nods, gives his family a small wave.  Chowder waves too, bigger, and it’s unexpectedly hilarious, and weirdly touching, how much and how fully Chowder loves.

He breathes deep and focuses, falls back into the rhythm of the game, but there’s a burning in his chest that the ice can’t touch, and when he manages to score in the beginning of the last period, he’s sure he can hear his family yell for him, even over the roar of everyone else.

***

“So, this is the Haus?” Becks wrinkles her nose.  “It’s sort of…”

“A mess?”  Hannah fills in.  She’s smiling though, so Will doesn’t take too much offense.

Besides, they won _and_ he’s got Kit on his hip, slumped against his shoulder.  There’s not much that could puncture the euphoria.  “It’s not usually this bad.  But, well, playoffs.”

“Will, do you have wood glue and half inch nails?”  Uncle Dan asks as he comes in the door, trailed by Whiskey.  “I could fix the porch railing for you.  Wouldn’t take long.”

“Um, my toolbox is in the basement –“ Will starts just as Bitty comes down the stairs and starts herding everyone in to the kitchen.

Whiskey looks between Will and Uncle Dan, and sighs.  Will can tell it’s fake, but he’s not sure his uncle can.  “I’ll show him.  Just save us some pie.”

“You don’t –“ And they’re gone, Whiskey asking quiet questions about woodwork, his uncle with that small smile that means he’s found someone to teach, even if just for the evening.

Kit squirms against him, cuddling closer, exhausted from all the excitement.  The team had cooed over her when they met his family outside the locker room after the game, and she’d soaked in the attention, shrieking and giggling.  He kisses the top of her head, hefts her a little higher.  She’ll be asleep soon enough.

“You get lost?” Nursey asks, poking his head into the living room.  “Everyone’s in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, yeah.  I’m coming.”

It feels good, having his family here, having everyone he cares about in one place.  And it’s working, better than he ever thought to expect, people getting along, his two worlds not crashing but melding.  He feels… content, for the first time in a while, tired but happy, and he’s going to bask in the feeling as long as he can.

In the kitchen, Ford’s telling Becks some story about her first week with the team, Hannah and Nursey are helping Bitty with the dishes, and Chowder’s sitting at the table, beaming. Will joins him.

“I’m guessing you’re at least partially responsible for all this?”

Chowder shrugs.  “Ford helped.  And it was just an offer.  We knew you missed them.  Made sense they’d miss you too.”

“Well, thank you,” Will says.  Chowder gives him a soft smile.

“You know, I applied here,” Becks says, offhand, just loud enough that everyone hears.  Will turns to stare at her.

“You did?”

She crosses her arms, pulls back her shoulders, goes all cocky.  “Yeah, so?”

Will blinks, because she usually only pulls stuff like this when she’s nervous.  “Um, did you get in?”

“Yeah.”  She shifts, ducks her head a little.  “What would you say if I said I wanted to come here too?”

“Avoid the Westside dorms,” he replies automatically, stunned.  Becks, here… it would be weird, but also something he didn’t even know he wanted until right now.

She smirks.  “Good.  Cause I already accepted.”

“What?”  He passes Kit off to Chowder (she only grumbles a little) so he can get up and hug the _shit_ out of his maniacally grinning little sister.  “Becks!  That’s – I’m so proud.  When were you going to tell me?”

He feels her shrug.  “I - it was just a couple weeks ago.  I figured I’d wait until I actually saw you.”

“ _Becks_.”  He hugs her tighter, just for a second, before letting go.  Bitty hands her a slice of pie and starts offering advice, while all the others chime in. 

He retrieves Kit from Chowder and watches as his new family embraces his old, and he can see it, Becks in this kitchen next year, alternately teasing and working on her homework, while his friends pop in and out.  He can convince her to come to a few home games, at least, and she and Ford already seem to be getting along, and Farmer keeps complaining about how there are never enough girls at the Haus, and… It feels right, good.

Hannah comes to sit next to him.  “Before the inevitable worry sets in, she got almost a full ride, and we’re pretty sure financial aid will cover the rest.”

He, for once, wasn’t even _thinking_ about that.  “That’s – good.  I would have figured it out, no matter what, but –“

“ _We_ would have figured it out,” Hannah interrupts, giving him a look, before glancing back at where Becks stands surrounded, her gaze a little sad.  “It’ll be weird with both of you gone.”

“And doesn’t this monster start pre-K next fall?” He asks, nodding down at Kit.  “You may have actual time to yourself.”  She shrinks, and he grows abruptly serious.  “Come visit whenever, I mean it.  Even if Becks doesn’t want to see you, I will.”

“I’m – I’m thinking about moving.  Not – not this year, but maybe the next.”  He glances over and sees the way her hands are twisted in her lap.  “Except for Mom, there’s not really anything there for me, you know?”

He knows.  Has known since she came home and he took to fighting boys who called her a slut.  Since the first time Aunt Martha had asked when she might start looking for a husband. He just wasn’t sure _she_ knew.

He puts his free hand on her forearm.  She stills, stops fidgeting.  “Do it. Get out.  Whatever you want.  You deserve it.”

“Would – would it be weird if I tried to move to the same place you end up?  It’s just – it’s nice to have family around, with Kit, and I can get a waitressing job anywhere, and I started working on getting my EA accounting certification – did I tell you? – so if –“

“Hannah.”  He stops her, the same warm feeling from before taking hold, a worry he’d been only half aware of lifting.  “I – yes.  I mean, yes please move, not yes, it’s weird, I’ve been trying to figure out where I could go and still be close enough, well, to Kit really, but _also_ you –“  Hannah laughs at his attempt to backtrack, “ – hell, er, heck, we could even share an apartment for a little while, maybe.”

“Maybe.”  She smiles, leans against his shoulder.

 _Now_ , he thinks, _I should tell her now_.  She won’t reject him, he knows it, but still, it’s terrifying, and he considers putting it off, not breaking the moment, but he also feels a little invincible, and, well –

“Um, Hannah?” 

She hums in response.

“I – have I mentioned – um, I’m – I’m gay.”

She lifts her head, looks at him, still smiling.  “Ok.”

“Don’t – don’t tell Uncle Matt.”

“Of course not.”  She leans back against him.  “Love you, Will.”

He doesn’t cry, refuses, just buries his head in Kit’s hair for a moment.

When he looks up, Nursey’s looking back, something soft in his expression, and for maybe the first time, two years doesn’t feel like a death sentence.

***

“And this one, O Mighty Organizer?”  Nursey asks, hefting a box.

Will sighs.  “Everything has a label.  You could just check it, you know.”

“But this is more fun!” Nursey chirps, before leaning in to give him a peck on the cheek.  “You get _so_ exasperated.”

Will rolls his eyes.  “Living room.  The only thing we packed in boxes that small were your books.”

“Thanks!”  Nursey calls over his shoulder.  Jack raises his eyebrows at Will as he passes.  _He_ at least appears capable of reading the labels.

They’d ended up in Boston, probably unsurprisingly, considering how many of their friends are in the area.  Which has the extra advantage of coercing their friends into helping them move and unpack.

Shitty yells something indistinct from the bedroom, where he and Ransom are trying to assemble furniture, and Will winces.  Even if some of those friends may be more hindrance than help.

Hannah pokes her head in, Kit half asleep in her arms.  “Hey. It’s naptime.”

She’d moved down almost as soon as school ended, with a newly minted accounting certification and a job waitressing at a local café Lardo worked at for a few months.  They’re not sharing an apartment, but they are in the same complex, a little outside of Boston proper but cheaper because of that. Will’s pretty sure he and Nursey will be asked to babysit a lot.  Not that he minds.

“Thanks.  If you come back later, we’re ordering pizza.”

She nods and disappears.

“Dex! I’m christening your oven!”  Bitty calls from the kitchen.  Holster, just entering with another box, veers off in that direction.

“I don’t think we have food!” Will yells back.

“I can send Chowder on a grocery run!”

Well, he’s not going to say no to that.  “Take Becks with you, C!”

She’d fallen in love with Samwell almost instantly, joining, of all things, the intramural ultimate frisbee team.  Will only took the whole team to cheer her on once.  She retaliated by telling them a series of embarrassing childhood stories. 

“There’s only a couple boxes of books left,” Lardo tells him as she enters.  She’d been coordinating from the truck.

“Dude, how many books do y’all have,” Holster groans, newly returned from the kitchen.  Jack grabs him and drags him back towards the stairs.

“Not enough!”  Nursey calls after them, starting to unpack the six boxes people have already brought up.  Bookshelves were one of the first things they’d put together, because Will knows his boyfriend’s priorities.

They’d gotten together early senior year, after a drunken make-out session, followed the next morning by a long conversation.  Neither of them wanted to repeat the mistakes of their junior year.  Parts of Will’s family still don’t know.  They’ll get there, eventually.  Some days, Will’s shocked they’ve made it this far.

“Please say you’re organizing those alphabetically.”

“Sort of?”  Nursey shrugs.  “I’m doing it alphabetically by genre, at least.  I mean, I don’t want to just mix the poetry with the novels, you know.”

Will leans over and tilts Nursey’s head up for an upside-down kiss.  “You’re wonderful, just so you know.  And I would stay and help, but I’d like us to have a bed tonight.”

Nursey waves him away. “Go save Ransom and Shitty from themselves.  I’ll get Jack to help when he comes back up.  He likes this sort of thing.”

“Love you,” Will says, so casual it aches.  He never thought that kind of declaration could be anything but torn out of him. It felt like it was, the first time.

“Love you too.  Come poke me when there’s pizza.”

It’s good, easy, in a way Will couldn’t have imagined a year ago, facing another summer on the boat and still so afraid. 

He thinks there’s a part of him that will always be a little afraid.

He’s come to the reluctant conclusion that that’s ok.

“What the _hell.”_  

Shitty and Ransom turn to him in guilty unison.  The bedframe they bought seems to be in more pieces than it came with, part of it in Ransom’s hands.

Will groans.  “What happened to the bedframe?”

“Um…” Ransom shrinks into himself.  “I actually don’t know.”

“None of the pieces fit right, so I took some of them apart,” Shitty volunteers.  Ransom looks betrayed.

“Of course you did.” Sometimes, his friends are crazy. He’s learned to roll with it.  “I’ll fix it.  Can you start putting things on hangers?”

“Can I organize your flannels by color?”  Shitty’s weirdly enthusiastic about the request.  Will decides not to question it.

“Sure.”

He practically bounces over to the closet and its associated boxes.  Will feels a wave of inexplicable fondness.  It dies pretty quickly once he gets a good look at the bedframe.  Thank god it’s metal.

Pizza is later than planned, but they have a bed, so Will’s counting the afternoon a success. 

They’re eating it sprawled out on the living room floor, paper towels as plates.  Kit careens from person to person, practically bouncing off of Holster’s bulk.  Jack ends up having to snag her before she steps in Bitty’s lemon bars, given pride of place in the center of their loose circle. 

“The courageous Kitty-Cat has been caught!” Shitty exclaims in his best announcer’s voice.

“It’s a miracle,” Becks deadpans.  Everyone laughs, even as Kit wiggles free and runs over to Hannah.

Nursey’s head is in Will’s lap, and no cares.  That, he thinks, might be the greatest miracle of them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Implied homophobia


End file.
